LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
Shelf J&35 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



CHRIST: THE GOD MAN. 
Typogravure— Hofmann. 



ASPECTS OF CHRIST. 



STUDIES 



OF THE 



MODEL LIFE. 



BY 



V 

BUKDETT HAKT, D.D. 



NEW YORK: £T£&> 9 X ' 
E. B. TREAT, 5 COOPER UNION.' 
1892. 






The Library 
of Congress 




Washington 





o 

E 
3 



TL® ©IRE 

THHbo wftb me bas Ifngereo long in tbe 

(Bailers of Ibolp. Scrfpture 

Before tbe one portraiture 

©f 1blm 

Mbom not baving seen we love 

Hno wbose Blesseo jface 

Wic 1bope 
Ere long to see togetber 



Ifntrobuctor^. 



It was in the soft atmosphere of the home of a 
scholar and teacher that I first saw the com- 
posite photographs, which, in that instance, com- 
bined and expressed the strongest facial traits of 
his family and of a class of students who had 
been under his instruction in a striking portrait 
of each group. 

It was the phenomenal and weird workman- 
ship of light. 

Unique, condensed, unified, character was 
represented by the combined result. 

It were impossible to reduce into one personi- 
fication the manifold Aspects of Christ. As 
even the world itself would not contain the 
books that should be written to fully set forth 
all the things that Jesus did, if they should be 
written every one, so the representation of Him 
would be imperfect however multiplied and 
varied might be the forms and statements which 
should be intended to characterize Him. Not 
only is Humanity fully indwelling in Him, but 
Divinity is expressed in Him as well. When we 
have said all, that which remains unsaid is greater 
than all that is spoken. 

May the perusal of these essays, a few out of 
many that might be written of the impressive 
Aspects of the Christ, quicken our appreciation 
of the Divine Redeemer and deepen our love for 
Him who first loved us. 

Burdett Hart. 

New Haven, 1892. 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Christ ; the God-Man Frontispiece. 

[Ho/mann.] 

PAGE 

Healing the Sick in the Temple 43 

[Benj. West.] 

The Great Teacher 69 

\_Le Loir.\ 

The Commemorative Feast 169 

[Rubens.] 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. PAGE 

Christ the Pre-eminent One 9 

CHAPTER II. 
Christ in Childhood 21 

CHAPTER III. 
Christ the Divine Carpenter 31 

CHAPTER IV. 
The Power and Fame of Christ 43 

CHAPTER V. 
Homes and Friends of Christ 55 

CHAPTER VI. 
Christ as an Ethical Teacher 69 

CHAPTER VII. 
Christ the Saviour of Men 81 

CHAPTER VIII. 
The Indwelling Christ 93 

CHAPTER IX. 
Christ's Presence in Perplexity 107 

CHAPTER X. 
Beauties of the Christ-Life 117 



CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XI. PAGE 

Christ the Confiding Friend 129 

CHAPTER XII. 
Christ in Sympathy with the Sorrowing 139 

CHAPTER XIII. 
Christ the Zealous Leader 153 

CHAPTER XIV. 
Christ at the Commemorative Feast 169 

CHAPTER XV. 
Christ the Bosom Friend 181 

CHAPTER XVI. 
Christ the Enlightener of Men 193 

CHAPTER XVII. 
Christ Manifest to All 205 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
The Unselfish Christ 221 

CHAPTER XIX. 
Christ the Revealer of God 223 

CHAPTER XX. 
Christ the People's Preacher 247 

CHAPTER XXI. 
Christ the Unchanging Friend 259 

CHAPTER XXII. 

Christ's Claim on Men of Influence 277 



THE MODEL LIFE. 




CHRIST THE PRE-EMINENT ONE. 

HE foremost thought of the world to-day 
is of the Lord Jesus Christ. 
Other great matters indeed are on the 
minds of men. There never was a time when 
so much attention was given to the development 
of mechanical and physical forces as is given at 
this day. Great as have been the achievements 
of the recent past on all this line of results, stu- 
dious and inventive and productive research is 
not satisfied. Greater power is called for. The 
latent and unemployed energies of nature are to 
be discovered and evoked and put to use. 

There never was a time when so much heroic 
and laborious study was given to physics, as is 
given in our day. Nature, in its laws, in its 
arcana, in its manifestations, is fairly laid siege 
to by students, who, with reverent devotion and 
untiring energy, seek to know what demonstra- 



10 THE MODEL LIFE. 

tions are awaiting them in the world-old labora- 
tories, by what subtle chemistries the great ele- 
ments of creation are kept in order, and what 
light may be given by the hitherto unread 
records to that which was before discovered. 

There never was a time when the laws of 
social life, the principles which should be con- 
trolling in the relation of men with men, were 
receiving such investigation as they now are. 
The world never had so many good homes as it 
has to-day. The institutions for the relief of 
human ills and for the comfort of the unfor- 
tunate, now surpass any that have heretofore 
been known. The great hospital at Greenwich 
publishes over its inviting gates that it is kept 
open for the sailors of all nations. Human 
brotherhood is coming to the front. Great 
statesmen are seeking to solve the problems 
which not only enter into the current history of 
their respective nations, but which affect the 
relations of all nations. Education — what a 
hold it has on best minds ! Reform — how ar- 
dent are its apostles! Progress — how deter- 
mined on every line are its promulgators ! 
There is an aroused intellectual activity, a fiery 
zeal like that of crusaders, a generous charity, 
a cordial recognition of what is worthy, a signifi- 
cant unselfishness in the matters of the com- 
mon humanity, which mark our day with red 
letters in the calendar of the nations. The com- 
munity of men, of mankind, is getting enlarged 



CHRIST THE PRE-EMINENT ONE. 11 

recognition. However strong the local pride 
may be, however intense the patriotic sentiment 
may be, it is felt that there is a brotherhood 
which is bounded by no territorial lines, and is 
constrained within no narrow places. 

But great as are these subjects of thought and 
activity, absorbing as they are with the special- 
ists, who are devoted to their own lines of inves- 
tigation, it is very plainly clear that, in the 
world's thoughts and among the world's forces, 
there is a Person who is pre-eminent. Christ is 
Lord and Master. The world's intellect bows 
before Him. The world's progress yields 
place for Him. The world's kingdoms recog- 
nize the supremacy of His kingdom. The 
order of the world and the adjustment of human 
relations are " that in all things He might have 
the pre-eminence." 

This is seen, in the hrst place, in the fact that 
account is taken of Christ in each separate 
realm of investigation and activity. Statesman- 
ship, science, social progress, philosophies, do 
homage to the Lord Jesus. If, in only one 
department of human labor He were owned as 
Lord, He would not have necessarily the pre- 
eminence. But if in all departments this be 
true, if the statesmen of largest forecast, and the 
naturalists of deepest investigation, and the 
hardest students of social science, and the 
philosophers who do the most patient work, 
accord to Christ lordship, and hold themselves 



12 THE MODEL LIFE. 

in their various duties as His servants, then it is 
plain that so far He has the pre-eminence. There 
may be men in all and each of these spheres of 
thought and action who do not own Christ, who 
reject the revelation of Him, and who den}- all 
Godhead and so all manifestation of God. But 
these are exceptions. A large proportion of 
these leaders are personally loyal to Christ : are 
professed Christians. Another proportion ac- 
knowledge His claims though they may not 
have individually given their saving faith to 
Him. The doubters are half-inclined toward 
Him. And the open rejecters are few. One of 
the first leaders of the world to-day, the man 
whose influence is largest, is one whose supreme 
trust is in Christ as a personal Saviour. When 
you read of such a man, with the world's burdens 
that are upon him, with responsibilities enough 
for many men, taking into his study the dis- 
obedient and reckless son of a helpless woman, 
and there talking with him and praying with 
him and urging him to a new life, you under- 
stand that there is the supremacy of a divine 
Saviour in the life of that great leader before 
which are willingly subordinated all measures 
and choices and affections to which his time and 
thought and energy are given. There can be 
no doubt who has the pre-eminence. 

And when you hear the man who is close to 
him in the world's leadership acknowledging 
that his great career would be a failure except 



CHRIST THE PRE-EMINENT ONE. 13 

for the faith in the Redeemer which insures his 
future, you understand that above any princi- 
pality in human empire is the sovereignty of 
the divine Saviour who can command the 
supreme allegiance of such a mind. In effect, 
the same thing is true in each sphere of respon- 
sibility and labor. It is not loyalty to Confucius 
which is controlling with our leaders to-day. It 
is not loyalty to Budda which challenges the 
first attention. It is not loyalty to heathen 
mythologies, nor to nature, nor to humanity, 
nor to conquering mind, which draws forth the 
devotion of our foremost thinkers and workers. 
Christ has the place of loyalty and of love. 

As the first hour of every day was given to com- 
munion with Christ in His word and in prayer 
by a most successful merchant, who has lately 
closed his service with us, so the first place in 
affection and in service is given to Him by those 
whom the world most trusts and to whom it 
looks for guidance to-day, and that not in a 
single sphere of service alone, but in each 
separate realm of investigation and activity. 

This is seen, in the second place, in the fact 
that the impulse of the sublime moral forces 
which are moving in society comes from the 
love of Christ. There is a love of humanity for 
humanity's sake. There are men who are 
engaged in great moral work who are only 
philanthropists. There are those even who 



14 THE MODEL LIFE. 

deny Christ who are the advocates of great 
moral principles. But all this is exceptional. 

The sublime movements for the world's moral 
renovation, which are systematically and strenu- 
ously carried forward, with courage in their ex- 
ecution and with faith in their triumph, have their 
profound impulse in the love of Christ. Out of 
Christian nations, and with the support of 
Christian societies, and with the encouragement 
of Christian sympathy and prayers, proceed 
those world-wide charities which aim at the bring- 
ing up of the whole race of mankind, from night 
and chaos and barbarism, from gloomy and cruel 
heathenism, from blood and wars and savagery, 
into order and peace and liberty, into the com- 
forts of civilization and into the blessings of 
Christianized society. The men who to-day are 
effectively laboring in India and China and Japan, 
in Turkey and Egypt and the islands of the 
sea, are men in whom the love of Christ is a 
master-passion. They are men like the veteran 
Moffat, who, in a great old age, has lately died 
in England, leaving light to shine after him 
forever across the Dark Continent: like Living- 
stone, who was found dead on his knees, with 
his face on the soil of the land for which his life 
was consecrated and his last prayer given. 
They are men with Apostolic zeal : men with 
the martyr firmness : men with prophetic fore- 
sight : men to whom Christ is first and last, is all 
and in all. 



CHRIST THE PRE-EMINENT ONE. 15 

And not only is this true of these comprehen- 
sive charities. It is strikingly true of those more 
contracted and localized reformatory movements 
which affect classes, which strike at single vices, 
which aim at the overthrow of national evils. 

That revolution which we have seen in our 
day, in our land, which has entirely changed the 
status of one-tenth of our population, which 
converted the nation from a slave power to a 
free empire, which placed us in an entirely new 
relation toward the other nations of the world, 
had its dominant and unconquerable impulse in 
love to Christ. That revolution was one which 
could no more be stopped than the New Testa- 
ment could be annihilated. And the fact that it 
eventuated in such dreadful issues, destroying so 
much wealth and so many lives, only demon- 
strates how strong, how invincible the impulse 
is that in all things Christ may have the pre- 
eminence. 

That other revolution which is working to- 
ward the freedom of our communities from in- 
temperance, which is seeking by moral forces to 
change the drinking habits of society, to change 
the laws by which the manufacture and sale of 
poisonous drinks may be restricted, is one that 
can be successfully carried forward only by mo- 
tives drawn from the love of Christ. The poor 
drunkard, victim of a debasing appetite, must be 
looked at as redeemed by the blood of Christ, 
and therefore to be labored for that the Re- 



16 THE MODEL LIFE. 

deemer's work for him may not be in vain. The 
woes of drunkards' homes, of wives and chil- 
dren, the guilt of those who tempt the young 
and who encourage the debauched, must be 
measured by those who estimate all moral action 
by the love of the Saviour and the peril of the 
soul. i 

The inspiration of the men and women who 
are now giving their lives to secure social order 
and worth and purity, is the pre-eminence of 
their Master and their Redeemer. Take that 
away, and these moral forces that are electrical 
in the atmosphere and that are regenerative in 
society would expire. It is this that keeps the 
churches open and makes the ministry effective, 
that gathers the prayer-meeting and the Sunday 
School, that gives so much influence to women in 
their sanctified endeavors, and that, through the 
greed and grime of politics will, on occasion, 
move the voters, in solid columns, to put prin- 
ciple above spoils and to recognize the suprem- 
acy of moral convictions. 

It is this that makes such a man as Von Moltke 
the leader of temperance reform in Germany, 
that gives such popular power to the eloquence 
of Senator Wilson in Iowa when he calls on the 
young men of that State in this crisis of the 
reform there, " to keep in line with the better 
thought and the moral forces of the times." It 
is the pre-eminence of Christ, of His Person, of 
His authority, of His love, that is the controlling 



CHRIST THE PRE-EMINENT ONE. 1? 

impulse of all that moral revolution which is 
working changes in the nations. 

And, once more, this is seen in the fact 
that Christ has the first place in the confi- 
dence and affection of His friends. There is 
no divided dominion here. When the test 
comes, in times of great public trial, in per- 
sonal sorrow, in the final struggle, it is seen 
that Christ is the Lord of His people. They 
show it too little on ordinary occasions. It 
is not marked enough in every-day life. But 
the latent principle is in every truly redeemed 
soul. Men and women and children have not 
shrunk from severest persecutions and terrible 
martyrdoms to make it known that Christ was 
first. In the disappointment and suffering which 
have shrouded individual lives, how clearly and 
beautifully has it shone forth that He was trust- 
ed, that He was the joy of His people in their 
bitterest sorrow, that He was their strength in 
their utter weakness, that He was with them, an 
unfailing friend, when all other friends failed. 
And in the last great agony, the whole world 
dark, and every human support lallen, His name 
has held undying charm, and His presence has 
sustained the lonely but victorious soul. That 
beautiful queen, whom all Germany idolizes, 
whose great portrait is the charm ol Cologne, 
whose pictures are beloved in every city of the 
proud empire, whose sweet name sounds in the 
love-songs and the battle-odes of a grand people, 



IS 



THE MODEL LIEE. 



as she breathed her brave life away in the Villa 
of Hohen-Zieritz, with those who were dearest 
to her, helpless to save her, turned from king 
and friend with her dying prayer, " O Jesus 
make it easy." 

In humble homes, He has been the Light of 
the poor man's cottage, and the feeble saint, ex- 
piring there, with little of worldly comfort and 
the homely attentions of faithful friends, has 
lifted up the same prayer to the same Deliverer, 
who is no respecter of persons. From regal 
couch and from hard bed He receives the same 
devoted loyalty, the same love and trust, which 
death only intensifies. We cannot doubt His 
place with His friends. They who know Him 
best, love Him most. They who dwell and 
walk nearest to Him, give Him the divinest 
pre-eminence. 

What place has our Lord with us? We may 
well put to ourselves to-day this question. He 
is not here in personal and visible presence. But 
His representatives are here. His Church is 
here. What is our relation to His church, which 
is His body ? Are we giving it foremost place 
in our affections and in our service? Are we 
willing to deny ourselves for it? Will we see to 
it that the Church, in which the Lord dwells, 
lacks nothing which is for its honor and prog- 
ress in the world; that it has our prayers, our 
money, our service ? 

His souls are here : the souls which at great 



CHRIST THE PRE-EMINENT ONE. 19 

cost He redeemed ; the souls that He wants for 
the gems of His crown and the glory of His 
kingdom. Will we seek to save them for Him ? 
Will we seek, by self-denial, by parting with 
that which we prize the most, by giving that 
which we are accustomed to call our own, to 
bring the unsaved world to Him, so " that in all 
things He might have the pre-eminence?" 

His ministry is here : the ambassadorship on 
behalf of Christ, commissioned to entreat men to 
be reconciled to God ; the ministry of reconcil- 
iation, to declare to the world that God was in 
Christ reconciling the world unto Himself ; by 
manifestation of the truth to commend itself to 
every man's conscience in the sight of God. It 
is for us to aid that ministry, to give it our sym- 
pathy and affection and support, that it may have 
success in the great work for which it is appoint- 
ed. It stands for Christ : it announces its divine 
message in His name ; and its one mission, its 
absorbing undertaking, through the preaching 
of the gospel and through manifold labor, is 
" that in all things He might have the pre-emi- 
nence." 



II. 

CHRIST IN CHILDHOOD. 



HE boy Jesus was twelve years old when 
He was so spoken of. I suppose that, to 
look at, He was much like many another 
boy of that winning age. That is the real, sweet- 
est boy-age. The reserve and rawness of the 
child have passed ; the self-assertion and over- 
confidence of a few years later have not begun. 
It is the prime of boyhood. 

Who would not have been glad to have seen 
the boy Jesus then? You think of other boys 
whom it would have been a pleasure to have 
seen and known. Such was the bo} r Moses, who 
was taken out of the ark of bulrushes by the 
daughter of a great king, and was brought up in 
the palaces of Egypt : a beautiful boy, as the 
story goes, so that those who passed him turned 
to look at him again. When he was twelve 
years old, he was studying under careful and 
wise teachers, who instructed him in the Learn- 
ing of the Egyptians, then the most cultured of 
all peoples. It is told of him that finding the 
crown of the monarch one day, 'he sent it spin- 
ning across the floor with a kick of his foot, as 

[21] 



22 THE MODEL LIFE. 

though the crown were only fit for his play- 
thing. 

Such was the boy Alexander, who when he 
was thirteen years of age was placed under the 
tutelage of the great Aristotle; one the con- 
queror of the world in arms, the other the con- 
queror of the world in philosophy. When I 
was twelve years old I used to read with pride 
how Alexander subdued Bucephalus, a grand 
war-horse, that afterward carried his master 
through many famous battles. He was so fierce 
that no one dared to mount him. But Alexander 
saw what the trouble was and was vexed that so 
noble an animal should be rejected for want of 
skill to handle him. His father gave him per- 
mission to try it, and the young prince soothing 
the proud animal with gentle tones and strokes 
sprang upon his back and gave him the rein and 
subdued him, so that afterward no one could 
mount Bucephalus but Alexander. 

Such was the boy Luther, who when he was at 
school at Magdeburg, with other boys, sang at 
the doors of the houses for bread, and cried 
" Panem propter Deuni," and who afterward 
became the great Reformer and changed the 
state of the whole world by exalting the Bible. 
This fine German boy with his sweet, voice and 
his thrilling songs won the heart of Madame 
Cotta, who took him into her house and taught 
him music and made a good home for him. 

Such was the boy George Washington, our own 



CHRIST IN CHILDHOOD. "Z6 

American boy, too good to tell a lie and brave 
as Alexander, with a fiery horse which he 
mounted, but which, unlike Bucephalus, in the 
contest burst a blood-vessel and died. Washing- 
ton became a man of prayer, having early 
learned to pray, and not forgetting, as some men 
do, in manhood, the good lessons and habits of 
boyhood. 

Many others too we can think of, some of 
them now living, whom it would have been good 
to see in their fair boyhood. But of all boys 
who ever lived in any land, I think we would all 
prefer to have seen and known the boy Jesus. 
He was different from all other boys. He knew 
more than Moses, who was learned in all the 
wisdom of the Egyptians. He was braver than 
Alexander, and conquered more of the world 
than that great conqueror. He had a heavier 
task than Luther and did more for every land 
than Washington did for our great land. 

What was it that made Him so different from 
other boys? His earthly parents were no better 
than the parents of many children. His schools 
were not as good as the schools we have. The 
society in which He moved was not as refined 
and cultured as much other society. The time 
in which he lived was not as enlightened as 
many other times in the world's history. 

Yet the boy Jesus was the first Boy of all the 
boys of the world. There was more to him : 
J le was fairer and more lovely : He stood higher 



I'-f THE MODEL LIFE. 

in every worthy respect than any other boy has 
stood. Men and women seeing- Him would see 
that there was something finer, nobler, more 
attractive, more heavenly in Him than in any 
other boy they had ever seen. The apocryphal 
stories, as they are called, that is, stories that are 
fictitious and have no real basis, that are told 
about Him, show that those who invented them 
and those who handed them down from age to 
age, thought He was a peculiar boy. He was 
Wonderful. 

There is very little that we certainly know 
about His boyhood. A few words in the his- 
tories of the gospels include it all. They tell us 
that His parents, Joseph and Mar)-, dwelt in 
Nazareth, an obscure town in one of the pictur- 
esque valleys of Galilee. We read, " And the 
child grew, and waxed strong, filled with wis- 
dom ; and the grace of God was upon Him." 
They tell us, that when He was twelve years 
old, His parents went up to Jerusalem at the feast 
of the passover, after the custom of the Hebrew 
people: that when they had fulfilled the usual 
observances and were returning, the boy Jesus 
tarried behind in Jersusalem ; and His parents 
knew it not ; but supposing Him to be in the 
company of their kinsfolk and acquaintance they 
went a day's journey : then seeking Him and not 
finding Him, they returned to the city, looking 
for Him as they went : that after three days they 
found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of 



CHRIST IN CHILDHOOD. Zo 

the doctors, both hearing - them and asking them 
questions: and all that heard Him were amazed 
at His understanding and His answers : that 
when His parents saw Him there they were 
astonished ; and His mother said unto Him, Son, 
why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold thy 
father and I sought thee sorrowing. And He 
said unto them, How is it that ye sought me ? 
Knew ye not that I must be about my Father's 
business? They understood not the saying 
which He spake unto them. Then we read, And 
He went down with them, and came to Nazareth ; 
and He was subject unto them : and His mother 
kept all these sayings in her heart. Also, And 
Jesus advanced in wisdom and stature, and in 
favor with God and men. That is all that is 
said. It is enough. 

It shows us what a wonderful boy He was. 
It separates Him from all other boys, and it 
unites Him to all other boys. He was like 
them : He was also unlike them. 

He was like them in that He had a similar 
home-life. He knew the sweet names, father, 
mother, brother, sister. He had cousins and 
friends. He was obedient to His parents. Do 
I say he was like other boys in that ? He was 
like some boys and like what all boys should be. 
It is a most precious thing to have a father and 
mother to love. A good father and mother are 
God's best gift to a child. The Scripture says 
of Jesus that he was subject unto his parents. 



- ' THE MODEL LIFE. 

In that he has left an example to all children. 
The rule of Holy Scripture is that children 
should obey their parents in the Lord. God is 
first. His commands are first of all to be obeyed, 
and when the parental commands are in har- 
mony with them, they are to be obeyed. But we 
ought to obey God rather than man. God must 
always be put first. Christ must be about His 
Father's business: then subject to His human 
parents. 

The child grew and waxed strong, filled with 
wisdom. He advanced in wisdom and stature. 
That he should grow and become a strong and 
healthy child in the out-door air of His Galilean 
life was to have been expected. That we see in 
most children in the same condition. But He 
grew also in wisdom, and more than that, in 
favor with God and man ; and the grace of God 
was upon Him. 

What were the books He studied ? He was 
not a High School scholar, nor a university stu- 
dent, nor did He have the training of the Jewish 
doctors. He was taught by His parents in their 
home-life and by the teachers in the synagogue, 
as we have our Sunday School instruction and 
our preaching service. He had a mind open to 
all the voices of nature, in all her volumes of 
truth, in all her display of ceaseless miracle. He 
mingled with the people and heard their talk. 
He was familiar with the Scriptures of the Old 
Testament: those Scriptures of which He after- 



CHRIST IN CHILDHOOD. 27 

ward said, " In them ye think ye have eternal 
life, and they are they which testify of me. 
Sanctify them through thy truth : thy Word is 
truth." In the great truths of the divine Word 
He found food for His mind, uplift and expan- 
sion for His soul, as any other boy might do. 
Men who become great by their study of, and 
familiarity with, the Bible, are strong men. It 
is worth more than all other books to an) r boy, 
no matter what business he is preparing for. 
He had better shut up all his school-books, all 
books that he is interested in reading, than to 
shut up the Bible. If he can have but one book, 
that is the Book for him, for that one Book of 
God is able to make him wise unto salvation. 
Wisdom, wisdom of schools and of books, is vain 
wisdom if it does not make the learner wise 
unto salvation. Any course of study or training 
that stops short of salvation, stops short of the 
main thing, the only thing of chief concern. 
It is pitiful, inexpressibly pitiful, to see a boy 
go out from his schools and his home into 
the world of men and of business without salva- 
tion. He is like a ship going out from port 
without compass or rudder, to be driven by wild 
winds, on stormy seas, to meet the iceberg and 
the hurricane, and to go down in terrible wreck ! 
Pity the boy, who, whatever he may have, has 
not the Christian faith to meet the temptations 
and trials of the world ! How many have I 
seen, in a life not now short, who started out 



28 THE MODEL LIFE. 

fairly, like the ship with its sails all spread to the 
breeze and its pennons streaming toward the 
skies, with music ringing from its decks and the 
shouts of its sailors flung to the air, in a few 
short months brought home with draggled sails, 
and shattered masts, and hulk battered and leak- 
ing at every joint, fit only for the fire, or thrown 
on a rocky coast a miserable wreck! If these 
were my last words to the boys whom I love, I 
would charge them to love the Bible and to 
obey it, and especially to love Him who made 
the Bible and who made them. Dare not to 
neglect Christ, to put off salvation, to run the 
risk of everlasting ruin. 

The boy Jesus also learned from communion 
with His heavenly Father. He was a boy of 
prayer. No day passed when He did not have 
intercourse with God. H- looked up for health 
and strength and wisdom. Any boy without 
prayer is weak. He who takes hold of the arm 
of God takes hold of infinite strength. 

By such means it was that Jesus advanced in 
wisdom and stature, and also in favor with God 
and man. Favor with God first : then favor 
with men. " YVould'st have a friend? Have 
God thy friend who passeth all the rest." 

The Jews marveled and said: " How knoweth 
this man letters, having never learned ?" Ah ! 
they did not know the secret of His wisdom. 
But you may know it. The Bible and Prayer, 



CHRIST IN CHILDHOOD. 29 

these were the keys that unlocked all the doors 
that He needed to enter. 

There may be one thing in which the boy 
Jesus was unlike all other boys who have ever 
lived. He was without sin. He never did any one 
thing for which He needed to repent. He never 
spoke a word which He should not have spoken. 
He never had a thought which He should not 
have had. He never injured a playmate, nor 
wronged another child, nor disobeyed any good 
rule. He was a perfect boy : perfect in thought, 
in purpose, in act, in word. 

He was a true, pure, holy boy. He had the 
favor of God. Day after clay, through all the 
sweet years of his boyhood He lived without sin, 
and no wrong thing was ever known of Him, 
seen in Him ; never, in fact, existed in Him. 

Sin is that which makes so much sorrow and 
suffering in the world. It spoils human, lives. 
It makes wretched fathers and mothers and chil- 
dren. It makes tears flow. It breaks human 
hearts. It wounds the heart of God. Sin made 
it necessary for the Saviour to die. He died to 
save sinners. 

Boys begin to sin when they are very young. 
They go on in that way too often. Too often 
they grow up to be sinners : sometimes very 
bad ones. They break away from their parents, 
stop praying and reading the Bible, leave the 
Sunday School, never go to church, reject 
Christ and His salvation, mingle with hard and 



30 THE MODEL LIFE. 

wicked persons, and finally become as hard and 
wicked as any. And so it is that the prisons are 
filled with young men, thousands and thousands 
of them, who have gone off into bad company 
and become low and criminal. 

In the boy Jesus we have a better example, 
the brightest example in all the history of the 
world ! Copy His true, pure, life. He grew and 
waxed strong, filled with wisdom ; and the grace 
of God was on Him. Men admired Him and 
God loved Him. There was nothing wrong 
about Him. He did no sin, neither was guile 
found in His mouth. He loved and obeyed His 
parents. He was always about His heavenly 
Father's business. He kept the Sabbath holy. 
He worshiped with God's people. He studied 
God's Holy Bible. His life made the world 
bright. 

Be like Christ. Imitate His life. Be boys 
that your parents will be proud of. As you 
move through the world make a path that will 
be brilliant with light as the light of noons, that 
will ring with music as the songs of heaven, that 
will bless others all the way as dews and flowers 
make the morning and the evening glad. And 
let us be so about our Father's business that, 
when our work here shall be done, we shall all 
meet in our Father's House ! 




III. 

CHRIST THE DIVINE CARPENTER. 

HE CARPENTER! It is at first, almost 
impossible to think of the Saviour of 
the world, the Son of God, as employed 
in the work-shop of the village carpenter. But 
there was His place and His occupation. 
Through His youth and His early manhood He 
was known in the humble town of Nazareth as 
the carpenter. If, as the tradition goes, His 
reputed father, Joseph, died when Jesus was 
nineteen years of age, it would fall to Him 
to keep on with the business for the support of 
the family: and, in that case, for eleven years, 
He was at work on the simple dwellings of 
Nazareth, adjusting doors and windows to their 
stone walls, making plain furniture for them 
and fashioning plows and yokes for out- 
door labor. From early morning- till evening, 
assisted perhaps by His brethren, He was 
handling the saw and the plane, the hammer 
and the chisel, and was passing from house to 
house to fulfill the orders of the village people. 
So they all knew Him in His business: and 
when, after His public life began, after He had 

[31] 



°-2 THE MODEL LIFE, 



gone away from Nazareth and entered upon 
that wonderful ministry which aroused the 
attention of the nation, after miracles of power 
had attested His divinity, He came into His 
own country, and on the Sabbath stood forth in 
the synagogue of His village as a teacher of the 
Scriptures, the people, hearing Him were 
astonished, and they said, one to another, 
Whence hath this man these things? What is 
the wisdom that is given unto this man, and 
what mean such mighty works wrought by His 
hands? Is not this the carpenter? Was He 
not working here for us a few months ago? 
Are not His brothers and His sisters here with 
us, and His mother Mary? They could not 
understand it. With a wisdom which surpassed 
that of the learned rabbis, with a power beyond 
that of man, His words and His works were 
unexplainable by them. He had not been taught 
in their schools of learning. He had not been 
familiar with the leaders of the Pharisees and 
Sadducees, with the educated scribes. He had 
not been a pupil of any Hillel or Gamaliel. The 
books of oriental and Greek philosophy were 
unknown in the home of Joseph and Mary. 
They were well surprised, therefore, at the 
wisdom with which He taught, at the grace 
which flowed from His lips. They had known 
Him only as the carpenter. 

The mysterious life which He had lived 
among them for thirty years was out of their 



CHRIST THE DIVINE CARPENTER. 33 

sight. His open life as a workman, building 
their houses and tools, was familiar to them. 
But His life with God, His deep communion 
with His Father, the absorption of His lonely 
hours in silent meditation on things divine and 
heavenly, were all unobserved by them. After 
all, they were not acquainted with Him. He 
had indeed learned something from His father 
and his mother in their home instructions: He 
had learned something in the humble village 
school of the synagogue. But His real wisdom 
was divine. He was taught of God. All human 
learning was but the preface to his knowledge. 
The world was an open book to Him. The sun 
and the midnight stars, in their sublime circuits, 
printed His lessons. The beautiful landscapes, 
with their pictured lakes and forests, with 
marching shadows and the music of winds that 
rustled the leaves and dimpled the waters, the 
bloom of lilies and the songs of birds, mountains 
that lifted their serene summits toward the blue 
of the skies, were the leaves on which he studied. 
The human heart, bare to His scrutiny, with its 
joys and sorrows and its sober aspirations, as 
He saw it in the homes where He labored, 
among the simple people with whom He lived, 
torn by the tragedies of life, soothed by (he 
tenderness of sympathetic love, was a volume 
of profound meaning for His constant thought. 
Memories of the glorious world where His 
eternal life had been spent, the music of the 



34 THE MODEL LIFE. 

angel-choirs, the splendor and peace of a holy 
estate, the glory of the Throne and the infinite 
perfections of Godhead, filled His soul and 
brought perpetual uplift to his lowly being. 
Nature and history, biography and living men, 
were His instructors. One who has looked upon 
the scene has vividly described the historic plain 
which the Saviour saw from the hill which 
rises six hundred feet above the village of 
Nazareth. " It was in the heart of the land of 
Israel. The standards of Rome were planted 
on the plain before him : the language of Greece 
was spoken in the towns below. And however 
peaceful it then might look, green as a pavement 
of emerald, rich with its gleams of vivid sun- 
light, and the purpling shadows which floated 
over it from the clouds of the latter rain, it had 
been for centuries a battle-field of nations. 
Pharaohs and Ptolemies, Emirs and Arsacids, 
judges and consuls, had all contended for the 
mastery of that smiling tract. It had glittered 
with the lances of the Amelekites : it had trem- 
bled under the chariot-wheels of Sesostris ; it 
had echoed the twanging bow-strings of Senna- 
cherib ; it had been trodden by the phalanxes of 
Macedonia ; it had clashed with the broadswords 
of Rome ; it was destined hereafter to ring with 
the battle cry of the Crusaders, and thunder 
with the artillery of England and of France. In 
that Plain of Jezreel, Europe and Asia, Judaism 
and heathenism, barbarism and civilization, the 



CHRIST THE DIVINE CARPENTER. 35 

old and the new covenant, the history of the 
past and the hopes of the present, seemed all to 
meet. No scene of deeper significance for the 
destinies of humanity could possibly have 
arrested the youthful Saviour's g^ze." 

Under such instructive influences, earth and 
heaven being His teachers, the strange boyhood 
and youth and young manhood of the Messiah 
had passed away : and when He came before the 
people who had known Him well through those 
preparatory periods, opening their sacred record 
with a wisdom which surpassed that of their 
learned scribes and rabbis, they asked with won- 
der and skepticism, Is not this the Carpenter? 

A poet of our day has indulged in the conceit 
that somewhere in Nazareth or in some part of 
Palestine there may yet be found some surviving 
memento of the workmanship of Christ : 

" Some dear relique 
Of work by Joseph's Son. 
Some carved thought, some tool of toil, 

Some house with stones grown gray, 
A home He built who had not where 

His weary head to lay. 
It were a thing most beautiful, 

Of rare and rich design : 
And something very true and strong, 

Made by a skill divine. 
The road-side stones at sight of Him 

Could scarce their rapture hush : 
What felt His touch and art must yet 

With conscious beauty blush." 



36 THE MODEL LIFE. 

But as there are no pictures preserved of Him, 
so there are no memorials of His known handi- 
work. Such memorial, if preserved, would be 
idolized. It would be considered a sacred thing 
and superstitious men would even worship it. 

A recent number of " The Century " contains 
an interior of a carpenter's shop in Nazareth, 
with the tools that were in use and articles that 
were made, and the writer says : " Whatever 
the Palestine carpenter produces is from the 
fragrant cedars of Lebanon or from the eccen- 
trically knotted and gnarled olive-wood." Mem- 
orials of His handiwork in fragrant cedar or 
beautifully grained olivewood would be indeed 
precious treasures to those who cherish His 
memory and love Him and all His works. But 
though no such reiics have been handed down, 
there may be, yet, in the old interiors of the 
houses of Nazareth woodwork which the hand 
of this Carpenter wrought, doors and shelves and 
window-sills which he framed and set in place, 
which it were good to see. In an old and well- 
preserved house in Oxford, wainscoted and 
ceiled with English oak, as we were examining 
its elaborate panels and the tasteful workmanship 
of its woods, one of its refined dwellers said to 
me of a room into which we had entered, " This is 
a thousand years old !" The hardy cedar and 
the undecaying olive-wood of Lebanon would 
remain well-preserved for two thousand years in 
its original beauty and form. So that the travel- 



CHRIST THE DIVINE CARPENTER. 37 

er, exploring the white dwellings of Nazareth to- 
day may, unconsciously, come upon the very 
handiwork of this most illustrious Carpenter! 

But if he should not, and could not, assure him- 
self of this, he would yet be among known works 
of Christ. The heavens that bend above that 
historic town declare His glory, and the firma- 
ment showeth His handiwork. Day unto day 
uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth 
knowledge of His creations. Each star that 
beams from its remote place, in the unmeasured 
distances of space, is from His forming hand. 
Tabor with it; groves of oak, and Carmel in its 
rugged features, and Hebron with its crown of 
snow, were made by Him. The Sea of Galilee, 
the wide plain of Esdraelon, the fruitful hills of 
Samaria, are all the products of His thought. 
The endless variety of flowers that garnish the 
rocks and the wayside with their luxurious 
beauty, are His own ideas in those graceful and 
fragrant forms. And every man, and every 
child, in that old town where He wrought with 
saw and chisel at the carpenter's bench, is the 
statuesque production of this divine Artist. Not 
in Nazareth can you go amiss of works of Christ. 
The very ground on which it is builded He 
made. The birds that flash over it on their 
wings of blue, and the camels that shamble 
through it in their patient pace, and every soul 
that gives a strange character to that early home 
of the Lord, own him as their Author. And the 



38 THE MODEL LIFE. 

signals of Him are not alone at hoary Nazareth. 
They are all over the world which is sanctified 
by His tread and toil, by His blessed works 
and words, by his vicarious sufferings and death. 
Would we find relics and memorials of Him ? 
Would we see remembrances of our Lord? We 
need not cross the sea. We need not climb the 
rocky path from G.ilboa to Nazareth. We have 
only to look around us. We have only, if we 
are His, to look within us. Around us and above 
us are His creations. Within us is His new 
creation, most wonderful of all ! He who made 
the heavens and the earth, made and re-made, 
reneived our souls, and wrought them into His 
moral image. The poet to whom I have alluded 
has wrought the fact into harmonious verse : 

" O soul of mine ! I tell thee true, 

If Christ indeed be thine, 
No more made He Himself thy kin 

Than makes He thee divine. 
As thro' His soul there frequent beat 

Our human hopes and loves, 
So midst thy varying joys and fears 

His spirit lives and moves. 

" But O my soul, as I thy good 

And evil ways explore, 
I seem to see the Christ in thee 

His earthly life live o'er. 
Thou art another Holy Land, 

(Ah! holy might'st thou be !) 
The olden joys and griefs of Christ 

Repeat themselves in thee." 



CHRIST THE DIVINE CARPENTER. 39 

Study yourself, if you are renewed in Christ, 
and you shall find that which memorializes Him. 
If you are like Him, it is His hand that has 
fashioned you after that divine likeness. If in 
you are the graces of the spirit, it is by Him that 
they are wrought. If you are redeemed unto 
God, it is through the redemption that He made 
at infinite cost. If you are healed from the 
wounds of sin, it is by His stripes that you are 
healed. If your transgressions are blotted out, 
it is His blood that has blotted them out. The 
new creation of the human soul is the new crea- 
tion of Christ. It is no more true that He made 
the world and its varied organisms, than that. 
He re-makes the soul and develops its divine 
life. It is no more true that, as the carpenter of 
Nazareth, His hand fashioned the woodwork in 
the houses of that village and the tools of its 
people, than that He fashions our souls into His 
image and will fashion anew the body of our 
humiliation that it may be conformed to the 
body of His glory. There is vast and tender 
meaning to that word of the apostle, " For we 
are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for 
good works." You, so far as you are a Christian, 
are the workmanship of Christ : and you have 
not to go beyond yourself to find memorial of 
Him of whom the Nazarenes said, Is not this 
the carpenter ? 

The signs of Christ, then, are not far to see. 
" The invisible things of Him since the creation 



40 THE MODEL LIFE. 

of the world are clearly seen, being perceived 
through the things that are made." The things 
that are made are ever in our sight. If we look 
upward, there is glorious revelation of Christ. 
Every star that flashes in the brilliant constella- 
tions, and helps to form the Milky Way, is a 
globe formed by Him. The sea is His and He 
made it; and His hands formed the dryland. 
His work at Nazareth was an insignificant part 
of what He has wrought. Is not this the car- 
penter? Is not this the maker of all worlds, of 
the landscapes that spread around us, with their 
hills and water and the glories of vegetation ? 
All things were made by Him. Without Him 
was not anything made that was made. But a 
diviner creation is that creation which is bring- 
ing on the moral renewal of the world. He is 
even now creating new heavens and a new earth 
for the dwelling-place of righteousness. The 
foundations are laid by His own hand. The 
structure is rising on every land to which the 
gospel has been carried. And the former things 
He assures us shall not be remembered, nor 
come into mind. The pick has dug into the 
earth's mines of treasure. The tubes have been 
pointed into the peopled spaces of the heavens. 
The glass has magnified the minute forms of life. 
Science has searched into all seas and along all 
shores, and the graves of the centuries have 
been made to give up their dead. Trophies of 
research have been published in books and in 



CHRIST THE DIVINE CARPENTER. 41 

charts, and have crowded great galleries and 
museums. The spoils from the material crea- 
tions have rewarded the study and investigation 
of men. 

But there is another study, and another world 
of thought. Christ, the former and the informer 
of our souls, is working out the plan of salvation 
as it exists in the designs of God. You see the 
ongoing of it. You see the child, with the 
warm affectionateness of his nature, won to the 
love of the Saviour. You see the father, who 
has lived without hope and with no God, conse- 
crating his manly powers to Christ. You see 
a whole family renouncing the vanities of the 
world, giving themselves together to the service 
of this blessed Master. You see parishes and 
communities wrought on by a power viewless 
as the wind and forceful as the tornado, revolu- 
tionized in their common life and turned toward 
heavenly things. You see, if your minds are 
open to current history, the progress of a new 
creation which is changing the world's history, 
which is sweeping away night and old chaos 
from the nations, which is gilding the horizon 
with the glory of a new and better day, whose 
light is to lighten all the peoples and to make 
Christ the Light of the world. 

You would find some relics of the workman- 
ship of the Galilean carpenter ! You need not 
seek for them in the fragrant cedar and the 
beautiful olive-wood on which lie worked in 



42 THE MODEL LIFE. 

Nazareth ! Here and now, around you, in the 
world abroad, wherever His gospel goes, you 
may plainly see what He has wrought. Men 
are His memorials! Renewed souls are memen- 
tos of His work. The restored world is monu- 
mental of Him. By and by, lighted with His 
love, made glorious by His redeeming ministry 
upon it, it will swing through the heavens, 
among other spheres of light, the chief among 
ten thousand, the one altogether lovely, for His 
accomplished work upon it! 

This is the carpentering of the Master Build- 
er ! This is the city whose builder and maker 
is God. Jesus Christ is He " in whom each 
several building, fitly framed together, groweth 
into a holy temple in the Lord ; in whom ye 
also are builded together for a habitation of God 
in the Spirit." 




HEALING THE SICK IN THE TEMPLE. 
Tj pogr i me l:< nj. West. 




IV. 

THE POWER AND FAME OF CHRIST. 

STRANGE Life had come into the 
world ! strange in its beginnings, in its 
continuance, in its ending ! The pre- 
announcement of it was such as has no parallel 
in history. The Birth of this Person in a humble 
place drew from heaven a multitude of angels 
who filled the mountain-air above Bethlehem 
with their exultant praises. It brought wise 
men from a far country, guided by a phenom- 
enal star, with regal presents of gold and frank- 
incense and myrrh, to worship Him. In the 
house of the village carpenter at Nazareth there 
was a wonderful boyhood. When He was 
twelve years old His parents found Him in the 
temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both 
hearing them and asking them questions. His 
parents did not understand what He spake unto 
them. Even in His earliest infancy they 
marveled at the things which were spoken con- 
cerning Him. He lived with them : He was 
obedient unto them : but, with all His winning 
traits there was mystery about the Boy which 
they could not fathom. He was unlike all other 

L43] 



4A THE MODEL LIFE. 

boys. Who was He ? From what world had 
He come to this? On what mission had this 
mystic life been launched into the living forces 
of the world ? 

Then came a period of eighteen years' of 
obscurity and silence, in which this remarkable 
youth followed the trade of a carpenter in the 
village where His father had pursued that occu- 
pation until his death. No history tells us of 
these years. We can only wonder what they 
were in the discipline and growth of Him of 
whom we read, that He advanced in wisdom and 
stature and in favor with God and men. 

When He was thirty years of age His public 
ministry began. It burst on the people as some- 
thing extraordinary. At his baptism, the Holy 
Spirit, in bodily form as a dove, descended from 
the open heavens upon Him, and a voice came 
from the firmament : " Thou art my beloved 
Son ; in thee I am well pleased." John the Bap- 
tist testified that he saw the strange occurrence : 
" I saw and bare record, that this is the Son of 
God." The spirit of power abode upon Him 
and abode with Him : so that immediately He 
became the prominent figure before the people. 
A wide fame went out concerning Him through 
all the regions round about: and He taught in 
their synagogues, being glorified of all. Luke 
mentions this before he makes mention of any 
miracle as wrought by Christ. It was the power 
of His preaching ; it was the wonderful doctrine 



THE POWER AND FAME OF CHRIST. 45 

that he taught ; it was the new meaning's which 
He brought out of the old Scriptures ; which 
made His name and fame so pervasive and 
prominent. It was so in Galilee : it was so in 
Samaria. He spoke, as the Roman soldiers after, 
ward testified, as no man ever spake. His very 
first journey was a triumph. Grace was poured 
into His lips. But his words were confirmed by 
that wonderful series of miracles which proved 
His innate and irresistible divinity. Without 
them He was great : with them His power was 
incontestable. Matthew, almost at the beginning 
of the history, says, Jesus went about in all Gal- 
ilee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching 
the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all man- 
ner of disease and all manner of sickness among 
the people. And the report of Him went forth 
into all Syria, and they brought unto Him all 
that were sick, holden with divers diseases and 
torments, possessed with demons, and epileptic 
and palsied, and he healed them. Then comes a 
statement by Matthew, which introduces a fact 
of marvel in this unique life and which is with- 
out parallel : " And there followed Him great 
multitudes from Galilee and Decapolis and 
Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond Jordan." 
The people were drawn to Him by a magic 
attraction. They could not be kept away from 
Him. Over and over again, in all the gospels, is 
it repeated that multitudes, great multitudes, 
clung to Him, followed Him wherever He went, 



46 THE MODEL LIFE. 

from the beginning of his ministry, till in sad 
and gloomy ranks they closed around Him on 
Calvary and wept at the tragic event of the 
cross ! 

Matthew writes: "And seeing the multitudes, 
He went up into the mountain." And then he 
gave the Sermon on the Mount, as it is called. 
See now how often the fact is taken notice of. 
The multitudes were astonished at His teaching. 
When He was come down from the mountain 
great multitudes followed Him. When the 
multitudes saw it, they were afraid, and glori- 
fied God, who had given such authority unto 
men. When He saw the multitudes, He was 
moved with compassion for them, because they 
were distressed and scattered, as sheep not hav- 
ing a shepherd. Jesus began to say unto the 
multitudes concerning John. While He was 
yet speaking to the multitudes, behold, His 
mother and brethren stood without, seeking to 
speak to Him. On that day went Jesus out of the 
house, and sat by the sea-side. And there were 
gathered unto Him great multitudes, so that He 
entered into a boat, and sat; and all the multi- 
tude stood on the beach. Then He spake many 
things to them in parables. Then he left the 
multitudes and went into the house. In vari- 
ous great divisions of the country the same thing 
occurred. When Jesus had finished these words, 
He departed from Galilee, and came into the 
borders of Judea beyond Jordan : and great 



THE POWER AND FAME OF CHRIST. 47 

multitudes followed Him. And as they went 
out from Jericho, a great multitude followed 
Him. At Sychar, in Samaria, the mass of the 
people turned out to see and hear him. 

Once, as He approached Jerusalem, there was 
a remarkable demonstration. Dore has made it 
the subject of one of his greatest and most im- 
pressive paintings. From the mount of Olives, 
from which afterward He ascended to heaven, 
He was escorted by a great multitude, who 
spread their garments in the way before Him 
and cut branches from the evergreen olive-trees 
and spread them in the way. From the country 
where He had been employed a great multitude 
accompanied Him. From the city which He 
was about to enter another great multitude 
came forth to escort Him. And the multitudes 
that went before Him, and that followed, cried, 
saying, " Hosanna to the Son of David : Blessed 
is He that cometh in the name of the Lord : 
Hosanna in the highest." They gave Him 
royal salute. They escorted Him as in tri- 
umphal procession. They gave Him entrance to 
the capital as great kings are given entrance. 
And when he was come into Jerusalem all the 
city was stirred, saying : "Who is this?" And 
the multitudes answered : " This is the prophet 
Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee." Then they 
would have crowned Him, and placed Him on 
the historic thrpne of David, as from time to 
time the multitudes attempted to do. By a 



48 THE MODEL LIFE. 

whirlwind of popular excitement they would 
have swept down opposition and brought on con- 
flict with the power of the Roman Empire. The 
narrative goes on to say : When the multitudes 
heard it, they were astonished at His teaching. 
Then spake Jesus to the multitudes and to His 
disciples. And repeatedly it is stated that His 
angry enemies dare not touch him for fear of the 
people, lest a tumult arise among the people. 

The Gospel of Mark is just as full of similar 
statements. He says, many were gathered to- 
gether, so that there was no longer room for 
them, no, not even about the door. He went 
forth by the sea-side, and all the multitude re- 
sorted unto Him, and He taught them. Jesus, 
with His disciples, withdrew to the sea: and a 
great multitude from Galilee followed: and 
from Judea, and from Idumea, and beyond Jor- 
dan, and about Tyre and Sidon.agreat multitude, 
hearing what great things He did, came unto 
Him. And he spake unto His disciples, that a 
little boat should wait on Him because of the 
crowd, lest they should throng Him. When 
Jesus had crossed over again in the boat unto 
the other side, a great multitude was gathered 
unto Him : and He was by the sea. 

Mark is characteristically graphic in his des- 
criptions of this point. Jesus and his disciples 
went apart into a desert place. And the people 
saw them going, and many knew them, and they 
ran there together on foot from all the cities, and 



THE POWER AND FAME OE CflKlST. 49 

out-went them. Again, the people knew Him, 
and ran about that whole region to gather the 
sick. And wheresoever he entered, into villages 
or into cities, or into the country, they laid the 
sick in the market-places, and besought Him that 
thev might touch if it were but the border of 
His garment : and as many as touched Him were 
made whole. 

Luke is just as full in referring to this striking 
fact : and it is very often noticed in the different 
history of John. I do not need to quote any 
further : but if you will notice the statements in 
your reading you will see how all the gospels 
dwell on it. Nor are we left in doubt as to the 
size of these multitudes. Luke says, " When the 
many thousands of the multitude were gathered 
together." Mark tells us that they that ate the 
loaves were five thousand imn. Mark says, 
they that did eat were four thousand men, beside 
women and children. They were multitudes, 
great multitudes, many thousands, five thousand 
at one time, four thousand beside women and 
children at another time. These immense con- 
gregations of people, from different nations and 
regions of country, poured along wherever He 
went. Nothing like it was ever elsewhere 
known in history. They amounted to armies. 
It was a wide fame. He could not appear any- 
where without this overwhelming mustering of 
forces. Those who heard him speak, told of it. 
Those who were healed spread His fame. John 



50 THE MODEL LIFE. 

the Baptist heard of it behind prison bars. 
Herod heard of it in his luxurious palaces. 
Greeks heard of it, and when they came to 
Jerusalem they wanted to see Jesus. Joseph, of 
Arimathea, heard of it, and sought to do Him 
honor. All the synagogues were open to Him. 
The cities were stirred by His entrance. Far in 
the country, beyond the Hebrew border, He 
could not be hid. The Scribes, Pharisees, and 
Sadducees were combined for His ruin. The 
throne trembled at His name : for His armies 
wished to make Him King. He was the idol of 
the people. He carried the popular enthusiasm. 
Nothing could have stood before Him. No 
human power could cope with One who could 
feed His armies by miracle and so needed no 
commissariat: who could heal His wounded and 
restore His dead, and so needed no medical staff 
and no recruiting of forces. It was a most won- 
derful phenomenon. 

To what are we to ascribe it ? How can it 
be accounted for ? It is to be explained, first of 
all, by His remarkable personality. Christ had in 
Him the hidings of divinity. Ordinarily, as 
when He was a carpenter in Nazareth, and was 
engaged in common duties, men would have 
noticed only that He was no ordinary man. 
But on extraordinary occasions, the divinity 
flashed in His dark eye, spoke in His voice of 
authority, was seen in the wave of his hand, and 



The power and fame of ohrist. 51 

was revealed in the pose and majesty of His 
person. 

He was every inch a King ! Royalty sat on 
His brow like a crown. The lifting of His 
finger was like the lifting of a scepter. His 
word was sovereignty. The seat on which He 
sat, though it were in a boat on Galilee, was a 
throne. 

When, in his own town of Nazareth, roused to 
wrath by His words, the people cast Him forth 
out of the city and led Him unto the brow of 
the hill whereon their city was built, that they 
might throw him down headlong, He calmly 
passed through the midst of them unharmed. 
When officers and soldiers came into Gethsemane 
to apprehend Him, He went to meet them and 
asked them, Whom seek ye ? And when they 
answered, Jesus of Nazareth, he said, I am He. 
On that, they went backward and fell to the 
ground. No crowd of men, no soldiers trained 
to arms, could stand before his daunting look. 
God was in it. The omnipotence of Jehovah lay 
dormant, but regnant, in His person. Himself 
was the absolute miracle. Men of power have 
something of this. When a slave came into the 
prison to kill Marius, then seventy years of age, 
that mighty Roman only said, "Slave, wilt thou 
slay Marius?" and the cowering creature fled 
away. When the boatmen who were rowing 
Caesar across a lake were frightened by a sudden 
storm, he restored them by saying, " You need not 



52 THE MODEL LtFE\ 

fear : you are carrying- Caesar." Napoleon had 
that power over his soldiers, so that when, in his 
majestic manner, he handed them their eagles 
and bid them swear, their oaths were the vows 
of enthusiasm. But no man possessed the per- 
sonal, mysterious, reserved majesty that Christ 
possessed. It gave Him fame as the one man 
among men of acknowledged supremacy. 

It is to be partly explained also by the words 
which He spake. His tone was that of a prophet. 
He had the language of a seer. More than 
that : He spake like the Son of God ! He 
taught as one who had authority, and not as the 
scribes. The scribes taught as those who were 
learned in the Scriptures. But Christ taught as 
one whose own words were on an equality with 
Holy Scripture. Scripture was only His own 
word, spoken through holy men. 

His words were for the deepest needs of men. 
He spoke to the human heart, to its wants, and 
sorrows, to its conviction of sin and its desires 
for escape. He represented God in the two 
great aspects of His character, as offended with 
sin, and as willing to be reconciled with the 
sinner. Men knew then, as they know now, 
what sin is. Christ made them realize its 
enormity. Those denunciatory words with 
which He rebuked the hypocrites of His day, 
had in them the terror of the judgment. They 
rolled on the sinful world like the voices of the 
seven trumpets of doom. Poor, depraved, full 



THE POWER AND FAME OF CHRIST. 53 

of sorrow and woe, lost men needed the words 
of hope. And Christ drew them with His 
tenderness. He told them of the divine love. 
He told them of a Father who would come forth 
to meet them on their penitent return to Him ; 
who would run and fall on the prodigal's neck 
and kiss him ; who would welcome him to the 
old home and put the best robe on him, and put 
a costly ring on his hand, and make a glad 
festival of the day of his home-coming. Sinful 
men wanted such words as these. They struck 
on their hearts like the tones of inspiring music. 
They lifted them out of their forlornness. They 
kindled aspirations of better things in their 
souls. No wonder that great multitudes, many 
thousands, hung on His lips, thronged Him 
wherever He went, looked upon Him as a divine 
friend ! No wonder that from all villages and 
all cities, not in Judea alone, but in Galilee and 
Samaria and in heathen territory, they gathered 
at the magic of His name and the graciousness 
of His words and the healing of His touch ! 

It is to be explained also by His miracles of 
power. Disease of all types recognized His mas- 
tership. He was the Healer of the body, as of 
the soul. He spent a day in Capernaum, and at 
nightfall there was not a sick person within the 
limits of that city. He visited town after town, 
and the market-places, instead of being filled 
with commodities for trade, were filled with the 
couches of the sick, and He healed them all. 



54 THE MODEL LIFB. 

Death recognized Him as the Giver of life. The 
beloved daughter of one household He called 
back to life with one word, Arise, as He 
took her by the lifeless hand. He arrested a 
funeral procession on its way to the grave and 
gave back to a widowed mother her only son. 
He called Lazarus from the tomb where he had 
already lain four days. Such acts, which were 
those of God alone, thrilled the popular mind 
and stirred the nation with the sentiment that 
God was with them. 

Moreover, the overthrow of diabolism contrib- 
uted to this effect. The irruption from hell 
ot evil spirits, who desired to counteract the 
Saviour's presence in the world, was the occa- 
sion of a diabolic malady which, though some- 
what seen at all times, was peculiarly formidable 
at that time. But with abject fear and utter 
impotence the demons trembled at His pres- 
ence and obeyed His word. The people said, 
"What thing is this? for with authority com- 
mandeth He even the unclean spirits, and they 
do obey Him." He was Sovereign of three 
worlds! Heaven was His own and His home. 
Hell, from beneath, bowed at His mandate. 




HOMES AND FRIENDS OF CHRIST. 

HERE were a few homes which our Lord 
tenderly loved : in which He was sure of 
a warm welcome: wherein dwelt the 
friends who were always true to Him and whom 
He could unfalteringly trust. One was " Peter's 
house," in the beautiful and busy city of Caper- 
naum, on the fertile and fragrant shores of the 
Sea of Galilee, the gem of the seven seas of 
Canaan, in whose limpid waters were reflected' 
the marble dwellings of the city, the blossoming 
oleanders that fringed its waves, and the palms 
that towered loftily around. There, in the family 
of that brave and devoted disciple, He found 
rest, after the fatigue of His exhausting labors of 
instruction and healing and journeying, and 
solace, after the vexations and reproaches which 
He endured from men of shallow and hostile 
character. The low murmurs of the Galilean 
waters as the surf broke upon the beach, the 
music of the winds as they soughed through the 
stately palms and the evergreen olives, calmed 
His soul, and among these beloved friends He 
slept in peace. There many of His mighty 

L55I 



56 THE MODEL LIFE. 

works were wrought, as the great multitude 
surged around the dwelling, bringing the sick 
and all who had any malady to the gracious 
Healer. Once, on entering the house, He found 
the mother of the apostle's wife sick with a great 
fever, With a touch of His hand He healed her, 
so that she immediately rose and ministered unto 
them. From that blessed home our Lord began 
His troubled ministry. At Capernaum fourgreat 
roads centered, on whose crowded highways 
traffic passed from Jerusalem, from the Mediter- 
ranean Sea, and from the valley of the Jordan. 
Four thousand vessels vexed the waters of the 
Sea of Galilee, rude boats of fishermen, mer- 
chant vessels, yachts of nobles, and the armed 
craft of conquering Rome. In its busy marts 
men of many nationalities met in the keen con- 
tentions of trade. The amazing miracles of the 
Master and His words of authority were the 
theme of many tongues, and a wide fame of Him 
went forth into all the region round about and 
far into the territories of heathendom. 

Another of the homes of our Lord was the 
house of the little family at Bethany, whose 
members He greatly loved. Bethany was a 
quiet hamlet, a little out of Jerusalem, and thither 
He turned His footsteps after His day's labors 
in the hot and turbulent places of the noisy 
capital. Grateful to Him then were the holy 
calm of skies that bent in their serene splendor 
above Him, jeweled with the revolving worlds 



HOMES AND FRIENDS OF CHRIST. 57 

that His own hand had made, the peace of fields 
waving with luxurious harvests and fragrant 
with dewy flowers, the low evening songs of 
birds fluttering to their hidden nests, and the 
brooding silences of the solemn olive-woods. 
With His dear friends,— Martha, full of domestic 
solicitude, Mary with devout tenderness listening 
to His every word, and Lazarus thoughtful and 
sensible, — He spent the cool evenings in holy 
meditation and delightful talk and in communion 
at the family altar of prayer. For that home 
He wrought the most striking of all His miracles 
in the raising of His friend Lazarus from the 
dead : bringing back joy to the stricken family, 
and asserting, almost in the very sight of the 
scoffing capital, His kingly divinity. In that 
home, or by one of its inmates, the exquisite 
offering of the precious spikenard was made to 
Him, when Mary in the promptings of her deep 
love broke the alabaster vase and poured the 
costly perfume upon the head and then upon 
the feet of her adored Friend, and, while the 
house was filled with the delicate odor, wiped 
His anointed feet with her own flowing hair. In 
that home, too, He spent one of the last nights 
of His stay on earth. He had turned away 
from the city, from its throngs of cruel men, 
From its profaned temple; from the heights of 
Olivet, looking down upon the fated city that 
had rejected its one Deliverer ; He had spoken 
His tender and warning and doom-full words ; 



58 THE MODEL LIFE. 

and sadly, thinking of all that He would have 
done for those who abused and vilified Him, 
thinking of that lonely, sacrificial death in which 
He was soon to make atonement for the sins 
not of Jerusalem alone, but of the world of sin- 
ners, He passed to the repose of Bethany, to 
the sympathies of those with whom He was 
more than all the world beside. 

Still another home of our Lord may have been 
that in the large upper room of which He par- 
took of the Passover feast with His disciples, 
and where He instituted the sacramental supper. 
He seems to have been familiar with the owner 
of the house, for He sent two of His most trusted 
disciples into Jerusalem, telling them that they 
would there meet a man bearing a pitcher of 
water, and that they should follow him into the 
house whereinto he should go, and that they 
should ask the goodman of the house for the use 
of the large furnished upper room for Jesus 
and His disciples, in which they might observe 
the Passover. Other homes also there may 
have been in which Christ was received as an 
honored and beloved guest, of which no mention 
is made in the sacred record. But from what 
is stated of these and of their inmates we may 
estimate the great, dear friendship of our Lord. 

It was the friendship of a large nature. It 
took in men of all degrees. It touched and en- 
folded humanity at every point. Men of learn- 
ing were strongly attached to Him ; ignorant 



THE HOMES AND FRIENDS OF CHRIST. 59 

men as well. Men of wealth were His friends ; 
the poor were so also. Students and fishermen, 
rulers and servants, alike gave Him their hearts. 
Not only did He know all men, but He loved 
all men. His mission to our world was a mis- 
sion of love, and so He was ready to welcome 
to His confidence and affection all who proved 
themselves worthy. The distinctions that men 
affect were of little consequence or concern with 
Him. He looked through the outward and 
seeming to that which was genuine and con- 
trolling. His friendships, therefore, were with 
real persons, with those who were what they 
claimed to be. For men to be His confidants, 
His chosen apostles, founders and propagators 
of His religion among men, He called plain fish- 
ermen ; men of brawny arms, but of brainy 
heads and hearts full of warm blood, who would 
do and dare for one they loved to the death of 
martyrdom. To them He opened as fully as 
He could the nature of His kingdom, and al- 
though they did not fully grasp it till their 
friendship was sanctified in His death, thence- 
forth their love turned into passion, and Christ 
and His cross were the theme of their words 
and the mastery of their lives. 

His own life was such that human friendships 
were inevitable. He was a man among men. 
In Nazareth, from His youth up, He was a 
plain, busy carpenter. lie did not live in 
luxury. He did not court the style of kings. 



60 THE MODEL LIFE. 

He was approachable bv all. The cries that 
came to Him for help from the blind beggars 
by the wayside were as irresistible as those 
that came from the luxurious home of the Roman 
centurion. 

The piteous appeal of the Syro Phoenician 
woman, over in the regions of Tyre and Sidon, 
beyond the range of His usual ministrations, 
woke the sensibilities of His responsive soul as 
deeply as the courteous request of a nobleman 
from the court of Herod. One appealed for 
the healing of her beloved daughter, with a stren- 
uous faith that would take no denial : the other 
for the healing of his dying son with a passionate 
imperiousness which mocked the discipline ol 
delay: while heathen woman and haughty Roman 
alike warmed in their love to Him who pitied 
the brokenness of the parental heart. The 
snows of Lebanon had not chilled the one, nor 
the ice of the court the other. 

The friendships of Christ are strikingly and 
beautifully illustrated in the relations of woman 
to our Lord. These relations characterize and 
distinguish the Founder of the Christian faith : 
they remove and separate Him from all others 
who are responsible for religious systems and 
serve to exalt Christianity to its true and fore- 
most rank. Woman was the friend of Christ. 
He ennobled that sex in the righteous claims 
that He made for it; His religion was its cham- 
pion : and the result has been seen in the exalta- 



The homes and friends oe Christ. 61 

tion of woman to her true place of equality with 
man wherever Christianity has wrought its 
blessed works. The reward came quickly and 
generously to the Master Himself in the pure 
love and the gracious sympathy of the women 
who came into personal and intimate acquaint- 
ance with Him. We have already seen how it 
was with His friends, Martha and Mary, whose 
house in the quietude of Bethany was His favor- 
ite home. Mary sat at His feet as though He 
were a beloved brother who had many things to 
tell which she dearly loved to hear. Martha 
makes complaint to Him, with utter frankness, 
of her sister's neglect, as though He were the 
master of their house. The woman of Samaria, 
entirely a stranger to Him, yields to the magic 
of His words — words that reveal His knowledge 
of her secret and sinful life, startle her out of 
her delusions and force her ackowlcdgment that 
He is indeed the Messiah for whose coming her 
people were expectantly waiting. 

It is an impressive incident which is given of a 
sinful woman coming to the Saviour in the 
house of a Pharisee whose courteous invitation 
He had accepted, that she might express her 
deep repentance and her glowing love. She 
did not look into His face, but she bowed lowly 
at His feet, wetting them with her flowing tears, 
and wiping them with her luxuriant hair, and 
kissing His feet, and anointing them with 
costly ointment. Joy came to her broken and 



62 "the Model lif*E. 

contrite heart as the Master graciously said to 
her, " Thy sins are forgiven. Thy faith hath 
saved thee ; go in peace." A mother who loved 
the Lord, and who had been much with Him, 
and whose two sons held eminent rank among 
His apostles, when it looked as though His 
kingdom was growing in power, came to Him, 
with a generous confidence, yet with a glowing 
ambition for her children, and besought that 
they might sit, one on His right hand and the 
other on His left hand, in His approaching 
royalty. 

It was not long in the course of our Lord's 
ministry before a group of women who loved 
Him, and had notable occasion to love Him, 
were united in care for the Master and His 
chosen twelve. They were women of position 
and property, whose influence was great and 
whose character and standing were without 
reproach. The first in this female circle was 
Mary that was called Magdalene, from whom 
seven demons had gone out. She is reputed to 
have been a woman of wealth and rare beauty, 
who was won from her earlier life by the 
awakening of her better nature under the 
influence of Christ, and who thenceforward 
gave herself, her fortune and her time to a 
cheerful ministry to the One to whom she 
owed herself. Her name has passed into the 
languages of Christendom as the representative 
of true repentance and devoted love, and insti- 



The homes and friends of christ. 63 

tutions of Christian charity have welcomed to 
their loving hospitality the Magdalens of the 
sinful world. The second of this circle was 
Joanna, the wife of Chuzas, a steward of Herod's 
palace. This Chuzas is thought to be that king's 
officer, whose son lying at the point of death 
was healed by the will of Christ, so that Joanna, 
after the death of her husband, gladly attached 
herself to the great Restorer of her boy. 
Susanna, meaning Lily, is mentioned as one of 
them : and there were many others. 

This choice company of noble and devoted 
souls belonged to the family of our Lord, and 
wherever He went through cities and villages 
that crowded the fertile territories of Galilee 
and Judea, bringing to their sinful and worldly 
populations the good tidings of the Kingdom of 
God, they were present with their womanly 
tact and their domestic skill, to make a home 
for the weary Teacher and the benevolent 
Healer. 

We hear of them again among the last scenes 
of the life of Christ. They stood in sadness and 
horror on the heights of Calvary when the mer- 
ciless tragedy of the crucifixion was enacted. 
Their sobs broke on the awful stillness of that 
hour of darkness. Their loving hearts were 
wrung by the agony of their dearest Friend. 
Any one of them would have taken His place 
that so He might be spared. Possibly they 
thought He would exert His miraculous power 



64 



THE MODEL LIFE. 



for His own relief. They thought of all that He 
had done for the poor and the suffering during; 
the years that they had accompanied Him. Ah ! 
they could not know the still diviner work which 
in His wounds and bitter pain and broken heart, 
He was accomplishing on the cross for the 
atonement of the sins of the world ! 

There were Mary Magdalene and Mary the 
wife of Clopas, and Salome, and his own beloved 
mother, Mary, in the supreme trial of her life, 
for whom almost His last thought was given and 
His last word spoken. These" last at the cross, 
were first at the tomb, to which in the gloaming 
of the morning they brought precious spices, 
after the manner of their people. Again they 
were Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of 
James and Joanna and the other women, and to 
them, so faithful and beloved, the risen Saviour 
first appeared : and first of all to Mary Magda- 
lene, whose soul burned with the enthusiasm of 
a love which death could not destroy, and who 
first of all thrilled the souls of the paralyzed 
apostles with the victorious words, " I have seen 
the Lord !" 

Most sacred was the relation of these true 
souls to Christ. He returned their love with 
the benignity and affection of one who brought 
from heaven a divine nature to be mysteriously 
united to our human nature, with its wants and 
sympathies and pure aspirations. He restored 
to woman her appropriate dignity and entrusted 



THE HOMES AND FRIENDS OF CHRIST. 65 

to his world-religion the maintenance of her 
rights and the sacredness of her character. 

Art and poetry have alike honored and pre- 
served the love of our Lord for little children. 
Children loved him and were drawn to Him by 
that attraction which they instinctively feel for 
great souls who have the God-like spirit. When 
He took them from their mothers, and folded 
them in His royal arms, and laid His gentle 
hands upon them, and blessed them, they nestled 
in his bosom, laid their heads over the great 
heart that throbbed with a divine love for them, 
looked love into eyes that spake back a pure 
affection for them, and caressed the mighty man 
who was the God of children. Memorable for 
all time are the thrilling words of the Master as 
He spread forth His arms in welcome to the 
little ones who eagerly came to Him : " Suffer 
the little children to come unto me: forbid them 
not: for to such belongs the kingdom of God." 
And then, as putting new honor on the child- 
like disposition, He spoke, with the blessed 
children in His arms, to the great outside, proud, 
self-willed world : " Whosoever shall not receive 
the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall in 
no wise enter therein." He thought of the many 
children whom He had welcomed to heaven, 
lost Out of lonely homes on earth, but saved for 
the glad reunions that are to come, and He said, 
" !n heaven their angels do always behold the face 
of my Father who is in heaven!" 



66 THE MODEL LIFE. 

The friendships of Christ were also with strong 
men. Two distinguished members of the Sanhe- 
drim, men of learning and of enormous wealth ; 
men of candor, but with the timidity which 
sometimes marks those who are in high positions, 
who had sought Christ perhaps secretly to learn 
of the kingdom and of the way of life, proved 
their affection by the honors which they paid to 
the wounded body of the Lord, when they took 
charge of it, embalmed it in fine linen and costly 
aromatic spices, and laid it gently away in a new 
tomb which one of them had cut in the solid 
rock for his own place of burial. We recall the 
tender love which Christ had for the wealthy 
and ambitious young ruler who inquired of Him, 
" What good thing shall I do that I may inherit 
eternal life?" and who could not endure the cru- 
cial test which the Master gave him. We recall 
the beautiful friendship, the love that was 
wonderful, passing the love of women, which 
subsisted between the Saviour and that disciple 
whom Jesus loved. We recall that three-fold 
inquiry which He put to His trusted, brave but 
weak, disciple, as if to fasten his affection firmly 
to Him," Lovest thou me?" We recall the eager- 
ness with which publicans attached themselves 
to Him and especially the zeal of Zaccheus, who 
consecrated his person and his property to 
Christian service. Men, true men in every grade 
of life, loved this Man of men, poured their souls 
into His soul, gave Him all that they had to give, 



HOMES AND FRIENDS OF CHRIST. 67 

toiled with Him, died for Him. There is noth- 
ing in history more supremely impressive than 
the affection, which life could not altogether 
express, which only death could sanctify, that 
strong men have cherished for their divine 
Redeemer. 

Still, the divinest fact, and the one that should 
touch and thrill all our souls, which makes 
this dark world light, which revolutionizes our 
human history, and evolves new destiny for a 
ruined race, which makes tender and irresistible 
appeal to each one of us, is the blazing truth, 
which should be engraven in every place of our 
assembling, and should be burned ineffaceabl}' 
upon our souls, that He, the Lord of glory, was 
the Friend of Sinners. 




THE GREAT TEACHER. 

Typouravure— Le Loir. 




VI. 

CHRIST AS AN ETHICAL TEACHER. 

HRISTIAN ethics defines the practical 
principles of human duty. A life con- 
formed to the ethical system of the New- 
Testament would be a perfect human life. The 
relations of men to one another would be con- 
genial and harmonious were they entirely con- 
trolled by the dominance in each individual of 
the truths of Christianity as applied to personal 
conduct. Society and business and government 
would be elevated and transfigured were they 
modeled on and pervaded by the doctrines of life 
and of responsibility which our Lord has clearly 
established. No other religious legislator has 
comprehended so thoroughly the need of man- 
kind as the Son of Man has comprehended it. 
No other system has been so sagaciously adapted 
to the conditions of the human race as the Chris- 
tian system has been adapted. The more fully 
men, individually and socially, have accepted 
and practiced the principles of personal and 
common duty as laid down by Christ, the nearer 
society has come to a state of ideal perfection. 
It is plain to see that the supposed millenium 

[69] 



70 THE MODEL LIFE. 

must rest upon the adoption and universal prev- 
alence of ideas of conduct which belong, if not 
exclusively, predominatingly, to Christianity. 
The Christian system of morals is closely allied 
to a perfect system of religion : and in this fact 
rests its superiority. Other theories of philoso- 
phy and religion, which are of human invention, 
are superficial and limited: but Christianity is 
profound in its adaptation to human wants and 
its requirements of human action. It is a S3'stem 
for men, as they are, and as God sees that they 
are, and is divinely adapted to them for their 
elevation and their congeniality and their com- 
mon happiness and prosperity. 

So an able writer of our day, not writing from 
a religious stand-point, says : " It was the distin- 
guishing characteristic of Christianity, that its 
moral influence was not indirect, casual, remote, 
or spasmodic. Unlike all Pagan religions, it 
made moral teaching a main function of its 
clergy, moral discipline the leading object of its 
services, moral dispositions the necessary condi- 
tion of the due performance of its rites. By t he 
pulpit, by its ceremonies, by all the agencies 
of power it possessed, it labored systematically 
and perseveringly for the regeneration of man- 
kind. Under its influence, doctrines concerning 
the nature of God, the immortality of the soul, 
and the duties of men, which the noblest intel- 
lects of antiquity could barely grasp, have 
become the truisms of the village school, the 



CHRIST AS AN ETHICAL TEACHER. J I 

proverbs of the cottage and of the alley." Chris- 
tian men, Christian families, Christian society, 
Christian nations, show the excellence of the 
Christian system, in the ordinary conduct of life. 
Apart from that which is spiritual, the ethical 
principles of the Christian scheme tend to the 
elevation of character and to the righteousness 
of conduct, and to the fair treatment of others on 
narrow or on broad fields of human relation. 

The ethics of Christ tends to noble life and up- 
lifting influence. Short-sightedness and selfish- 
ness are rebuked. Justice to others is required. 
We are not at liberty to look on our own things 
exclusively ; we are to have regard for the real 
welfare of others. Human frailty appeals pity- 
ingly to us; and as Christ bore our sins and 
carried our sorrows, so we are to be helpful to 
the unfortunate and the suffering. We are not 
to measure duty by the flaccid claims of ease 
and self-indulgence, but we are to rejoice in the 
privilege of self-sacrifice and self-abnegation. 
Personal influence should be as the salt of the 
earth : personal example, as the light of the 
world. Manhood should stand forth in its ideal 
significance to us. Each human soul should be 
weighed in balances that bear the stamp of 
eternity. 

The great principles of the equality of men, of 
the co-equality of women, of the dignity of 
labor, of the rights of the lowly, of the sacred- 
ness ol the home, of the perpetualness of the 



72 THE MODEL LIFE. 

marriage-bond, of personal freedom, of the title 
of each man to himself, of civil liberty, are made 
fundamental and controlling. Brotherhood is 
co-extensive with the human family. Charity 
ministers to the needy everywhere. Love 
binds and blesses all men with its sweet and 
sacred cords. Such is the range and dominance 
of ethical purity and power. 

The Sermon on the Mount, the longest and 
most comprehensive of the Discourses of Christ, 
is full of the ethics of His system. In it, with 
the grace of beatitudes, He puts in the forefront, 
poverty of spirit, mourning, meekness, hunger 
and thirst after righteousness, mercifulness, 
purity, peacemaking. 

Then, He puts the crown on persecution. 
Those who bear His royal Name are to let light 
shine forth from them into the darkness of the 
world. They are to honor the old law of con- 
duct by principles that are deeper and that sway 
unseen thought and feeling, so superseding 
the primitive commandments by a life against 
which they could not be leveled. Murder, adul- 
tery, perjury, revenge, the whole breed of base 
indulgences, were traced to their source and 
seat and were outlawed there. Love, by the 
new commandment, extends to enemies as 
well as to friends. Beneficence, prayer, fasting, 
are not of show and outward observance: they 
are secret graces known of God : soul treasures 
sent forward and laid up in heaven. 



CHRIST AS AN ETHICAL TEACHER. 73 

The world, with what it can give, is relegated 
to its true place of subordinate concern, and God 
is enthroned in the mind. So carking anxiety 
about this life, as to what we shall eat and drink 
and wear, is rebuked, and aspiration for the 
heavenly kingdom is stimulated. Confidence in 
God, the confidence which puts us in the place 
of children before a Father who is able and will- 
ing to do for us all that we can properly desire, 
is sanctioned and urged. 

Such life, ethically ideal, making the divine 
kingdom dominant, may be like the entrance to 
a narrow gate and a strait way, but it leads 
plainly and victoriously to a joyful ending. It 
would be known here by the blessed fruits of it, 
and it would give free admittance to the kingdom 
of heaven. So the building of human life, on this 
Christian model and by these Christly specifica- 
tions, would be like the erection of a house upon 
a rock, which tempests of rain and wind could 
not move: while anything lower and less would 
be like placing a structure upon quicksands, 
which, smitten by hurricane and flood, would 
fall, and great would be the fall thereof! 

This ethical Discourse, in its wonderful terms, 
has wrought into and through it the religious 
sentiment. Christ could speak no otherwise. 
To I f i in life is one. Man, in this world, is the 
child of God. I Ie is not to live under one set of 
principles as a man of the world, and under 
another set of principles as a member of the 



74 



THE MODEL life. 



heavenly kingdom. Whatever place he may- 
hold here, the place of a laborer, or the place of 
a sovereign, he is to be perfect, he is to aim to 
be like God. 

Faith is a universal principle. It is to control 
the whole life. It is to hold the free soul to an 
unwavering and constant confidence in God. 
And so when Christ is presented, the free soul 
will gladly and firmly lay hold on Him as a Sav- 
iour. Religion is the crown of ethics. It is the 
fulfillment of the ethical system. Christianity is 
the doctrine of right living. It is the perfection 
of duty. And any science of conduct which does 
not include repentance for sin and faith in the 
Redeemer and obedience of divine law, is imper- 
fect and insufficient. In this is the superiority 
of the ethics of Christ. It sweeps the field of 
human relations and conduct, for time, for im- 
mortality as well. 

The ambitions disciples wished to know who 
would be the greatest in the kingdom of whose 
coming they thought thev saw the signs. The 
Lord's answer was that he who was last would 
be first, that he who served most would be on 
the throne, that the most childlike would be the 
most kingly. 

The young ruler thought that he was an aspir- 
ant for the heavenly life. He had kepttheold law. 
But Christ challenged Him to that full surrender 
which would prove his genuineness, the surren- 
der of his worldly wealth. He had great posses- 



CHRIST AS AN ETHICAL TEACHER. 75 

sions, and he clung to them with a supreme love. 
He could not stand so severe a test. He might 
have been another Paul. But his name was 
never known. 

And when Peter, roused by the incident, put 
in a claim for himself and his colleagues as hav- 
ing forsaken all to follow Christ, the Master 
encouraged him bv the rewards which are sure 
to self-sacrifice, rewards which mount to hun- 
dred-fold receipts even here and the glories of 
eternal recompense hereafter. The doctrine of 
self-sacrifice was one to which Christ gave great 
stress in His ethical teachings. There must be 
self-denial, cross-bearing, persistent following of 
the Master if one would save his life. That life 
is a lost life which is employed, used up, in gain- 
ing the world, even if it amasses the whole 
world. The forfeit is too great. It is laying 
down an immortal soul for the perishable earth. 
The deeds of this life are in the reckoning for 
immortality: they, in fact, are the terms which 
determine decision for eternity. Christ urged 
upon men that they should count the cost. 
Count the cost of action : of the plans you make, 
of the enterprises in which you engage, of the 
warfare that you plunge into, of the structures 
that you build. Put your hand to the plow, not 
to turn back, but for tillage and for harvest. 
Life, to be true and fruitful, must be a service : 
hard perhaps, thankless possibly, little appreci- 
ated by the unintelligent, often lonely, depress- 



76 THE MODEL LIFE. 

ing, sacrificial, responded to by words which are 
weak and not by acts which hold strength and 
sense: yet self-rewarding, having the beginnings 
of heaven in it. 

Our Lord had stern rebuke and denunciation 
of the pride and hypocrisy of the Pharisees. 
He could not brook their ceremonial formalism, 
their vaunted self-righteousness, their contempt 
of others, their falseness and avarice and pride. 
He honored humility and repentance and the 
benevolent spirit. He characterized the mean 
and crafty and perjured Herod as " that fox." 
He called the venomous Pharisees, "offspring of 
vipers." He told the wicked Jews that they were 
of their " father the devil." But He was full of 
tenderness for the suffering and the penitent. 
Out of His heart went sympathy for the lowly, 
help for the burdened, compassion for the dis- 
tressed, forgiveness for the penitent. With 
withering scorn He frowned on those who 
would gratify their malice, or justify their 
wickedness, by inflictions of pain on others: but 
His hand was strong to heal and to raise up the 
wounded and fallen. 

Love to God and love to man summarized all 
law, all commandments, all duty. 

The most comprehensive and practical maxim 
of Christian ethics is that which, for its perfect 
adaptation to control men in their relation to 
one another, has been called the Golden Rule. 
Something like it has been suggested in other 



CHRIST AS AN ETHICAL TEACHER. 77 

systems, but in limited or negative forms. 
Christ promulges it as an affirmative and posi- 
tive and all-controlling principle. It is a law of 
laws. It reaches to all conduct, all acts, as 
between man and man. We are to put ourselves 
in the other's place. We are to think how we 
would wish to be treated in the present con- 
ditions. We are to represent our neighbor. We 
are to stand in our brother's footsteps. Then, 
as we would that the} r should do unto us, even 
so are we to do also unto them. How such a 
golden rule of conduct does away with harsh 
judgments ! How it prevents the anticipation 
of evil, the forming of uncharitable opinions, the 
charges of supposed wrong-doing, the easy 
acceptance of dark suspicions, the indulgence of 
envy and low-running jealousies, the cultivating 
of unwarranted prejudice, the utterance of sharp 
and severe accusations, the reflection upon 
personal honor and the intimation of a lack of 
personal magnanimity ! Stand there for your 
fellow-man ! Put yourself in his place. Then 
ask, how you would like to have him judge you, 
what treatment you would be pleased to receive 
from him, and then according to your opinion 
so formed, judge and treat your fellow-man. 
Truly the practice of that maxim would work 
an ethical revolution in manners and morals. 

But the ethical system of Christianity acquires 
its greatest authority and influence by the living 
example of its Founder. lie was the Perfect 



78 THE MODEL LIFE. 

Man. In Him met and harmonized all excel- 
lences and all virtues. The boy Jesus was a per- 
fect Boy. The carpenter of Nazareth was a per. 
feet workman. He was a perfect Friend, a per- 
fect Leader, a perfect Saviour. All His relations 
to men were squared by the Golden Rule which 
He announced : nay, they rose above that rule, 
as the heavens rise above the earth, in the incom- 
parable grandeur and heavenliness of their ben- 
eficent experience. He spake indeed as man 
never spake: yet he spoke to human need and 
for men's recovery. He healed as God would 
heal : yet His healing was for the relief of the 
sufferers to whom He came near and whose 
human cries awoke His pity. He saved as only 
a divine Redeemer could save : yet it was our 
sins He bore, our sorrows He carried, our trans- 
gressions for which He was wounded, our in- 
iquities for which he was bruised. Never has 
there been another so perfect and winning exam- 
ple in all the history of mankind. He draws all 
men unto Him by the power of a Love which 
embraces them all as an atmosphere. It is a 
Love that fills the world as the sunshine fills its 
air, pours its glory on all landscapes, streams 
into clefts and fissures and all deep,- dark places, 
gilds the foliage and the flowers, glimmers on the 
crests of waves and makes the great sea a golden 
mirror, lights our dwellings and flames on our 
altars and cheers all our hearts and makes the 
whole globe glad with the life that it preserves 



CHRIST AS AN ETHICAL TEACHER. 79 

and nourishes and invigorates ! Nothing - hin- 
ders it : nothing but men's rejection of it. It 
gives to Caesar the things which belong to 
Caesar. It companies with publicans and sinners, 
and wins publicans and harlots into the King- 
dom of God. It teaches all voices how to pray 
to " our Father. 1 ' It weeps with a more than 
human sorrow over men and cities of men whose 
doom is written on the sky that bends above 
them. It ennobles labor and sanctifies grief 
and lifts the helpless and suffers that others may 
rejoice. It enters all homes and would make 
heaven in each of them. It calls to every soul, 
in every condition of human experience, " Come 
unto me !" 

And this example is of power. It is the 
strongest force in the world. It has swayed 
men in all the Christian ages, in all differing 
nations, under all conditions and varieties of 
human life, as the hurricane stirs and sways the 
sea to its deepest abysses. It has reformed soci- 
ety. It has effected a humane civilization. It 
has made Christian government a possibility. 
It has brought honesty into business, public 
spirit into legislation, humanity into the treat- 
ment of criminals and animals, order into soci- 
ety, refinement into personal intercourse, bless- 
edness into homes. There is no power like 
Love: and Christ's example is the example of a 
boundless love. It has kindled responsive love. 
Men and women and lit tie children have been 



80 THE MODEL LIFE. 

ennobled and sanctified and thrilled by it, so that 
through trouble, through sacrifice, under bur- 
dens, under crosses, they have wrought for 
Christ that they might become like Him and 
that the world might be made better and that 
righteousness and peace might kiss each other 
and that the Golden Rule might be the accepted 
law of mankind. 



VII. 

CHRIST THE SAVIOUR OF MEN. 

HE errand, I might rather say as implying 
more, the mission, of our Lord to this 
world was one of Salvation. Other things 
were included in it and contributed to this one 
overshadowing object. A Life was to be lived out 
here which would be as a model human life. A 
Teaching was to be set forth which would be a 
correct ethical guide to conduct. A Discipline 
was to be endured which would be for the sup- 
port and consolation of all who are in the experi- 
ences of trial. A Testimony was to be given for 
righteousness which would rebuke the pride of 
Pharisee, the skepticism of Sadducee, the petti- 
ness of Scribe, the formality of Essene. 

But all this, important as it might be, was only 
secondary and subordinate to the great intention 
of His coming. The one purpose, masterful of 
all others, which brought the Son of God into 
the human Sonship, was to become the Saviour 
of our sinful race. Christ Himself declared this 
most plainly. "God sent not His Son into the 
world to judge the world; but that the world 
should be saved through Him." This He said 
in His memorable conversation with Nicodemus, 

LSi J 



THE MODEL LIFE. 



a learned member of the Jewish Sanhedrim, to 
whom our Lord, early in His ministry, stated 
the great fundamental principles of His mission. 
Nicodemus came to Him as a candid but timid 
inquirer, and he received a frank exposition of 
what the Master considered most essential in 
His system : God's love, man's perishing need, 
salvation by the death of the Son, faith as the 
means of securing the benefits of Christ's death, 
and the sad, patent fact, that although the 
Redeemer has brought light into the world on 
this most vital matter, men, by reason of their 
evil works, love the darkness and hate the light, 
and will not come to the light that they may be 
convicted and recovered. That was the plat- 
form of principles upon which Christianity 
rested, and it remains the same in this, as in pre- 
ceding centuries, as when the Lord first 
announced it. 

On another occasion, when the mother of the 
sons of Zebedee, who were of the apostles, 
worshiping, sought of our Lord promotion for 
her sons to the highest places in His victorious 
Kingdom, He closed the interview with words 
full of meaning and quite the opposite of their 
ambitious vauntings: "The Son of man came 
not to be ministered unto, but to minister, 
and to give His life a ransom for many." The 
high places on His right hand and on His left 
hand were places of the cross, and the cup 
which He was to drink, and which they said 



CHRIST THE SAVIOUR OF MEN. 83 

they could also drink, was a cup of suffering ; 
in His case suffering in which no friend could 
share, which no mortal lips could taste. 

This great truth became the banner-truth of 
the spreading gospel. It was the watchword of 
the Apostles. In the dark days when the whole 
Jewish power was put forth to exterminate the 
infant church, Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, 
boldly declared to a hostile gathering of rulers 
and elders and scribes and priests, that in none 
other than Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom they 
crucified, is there salvation : for neither, he said, 
is there any other name under heaven, that is 
given among men, wherein we must be saved. 
This swept away the whole Jewish ritual, and 
brought Christianity to the front for Jew and 
Gentile alike. Paul, writing to the Romans the 
truth which he had intrepidly preached in all 
his missionary tours, in the foremost cities of 
civilization, declared, " God commendeth His 
own love toward us, in that, while we were yet 
sinners, Christ died for us." John also urges 
the same thing in his first epistle : " Herein was 
the love of God manifested in us (in our case), 
that God hath sent his only begotten Son into 
the world, that we might live through him." 
Peter, in his first epistle, also says, "Ye were 
redeemed with precious blood, as of a lamb 
without blemish and without spot, even the 
blood of Christ." The testimony of the whole 
word is, therefore, most emphatic on this point, 



84 THE MODEL LIFE. 

that, whatever subsidiary objects were in view, 
the preponderating purpose of Christ's coming 
was the salvation of men by His death for them. 

The reason for this, and the necessity of it, 
lay in the fact that men arc lost. We may not 
like to think so: but that is God's thought. 
We may prefer to believe that we are unfortun- 
ate, unhappy perhaps, somewhat perverse ; but 
the divine estimate is, that we are lost. 

There are two conditions into which this life 
issues, and there are no others : one is a con- 
dition of eternal blessedness : the other is a con- 
dition of eternal wretchedness. Those eternal 
states depend on conduct and character in this 
life. In fact, life, as to that which is real and 
essential, is one. It is not interrupted, in its 
essentiality, in that which makes it what it is, by 
the circumstance of death : but is only removed 
from one place to another. It is no more inter- 
rupted by crossing what is sometimes called the 
stream of death, than it is by crossing the sea 
from one land to another, by passing across 
the territorial boundary which separates 
one country from another. The landscape is 
changed : the social conditions are changed : but 
the man remains the same. So man continues to 
be what he is when he crosses the boundary 
which separates mortality from immortality. 
His surroundings are different, his opportun- 
ities are different, his associates may be different : 
he is in another world. But himself is the same. 



CHRIST THE SAVIOUR OF MEN. 85 

The old name would call him. The old traits 
characterize him. And if he were to come back 
he would have the old personality. 

Our Lord, in His teaching, makes much of this 
fact. He solemnly teaches, that when the Son 
of Man shall come in the glory of His father, 
with a retinue of angels, that He will render 
unto ever}- man according to his deeds. He 
teaches that we enter now a narrow gate which 
leads unto life, or we enter a wide gate which 
leads to destruction. He teaches that by the 
course we now take we can lose our life, or 
we can find it. He teaches that it is better to 
cut off a hand or a foot, or to cast out an 
eye, if such a member hinders us from entering 
into life, rather than to go into hell unmanned. 
He teaches that our fidelity here to the trusts 
that God has given us will insure great rewards 
in the future, like authority over many cities, 
and that our unfaithfulness in that which is now 
intrusted to us will determine our loss and 
poverty hereafter. And with this all Scripture 
agrees. 

Inasmuch, therefore, as souls are lost who pass 
over the boundary of time into the changeless 
conditions of eternity without having secured 
salvation, and since the real life, which is based 
un character, there and here, is one, it is cor- 
rectly said that unsaved men are now lost. Thev 
are in that relation to God which necessitates ruin. 
They arc on the road which runs straight into 



86 THE MODEL LIFE. 

hell. The}' have begun, and are continuing, a 
sinful career, whose legitimate end is eternal 
death. As they will be without God and with- 
out hope who enter eternity with the guilt of 
their sin on them, so now they who are in the 
state of sin are said to be without Gv d and with- 
out hope. On both sides of the line impenitence 
and guilt are characterized by the same terms. 
Christ teaches that the life is forfeited on this 
side of the line. Here and now the ultimate de- 
cision is made. One distinction only exists : in 
this world there is hope; in that world there is 
only despair. Here there is hope because the 
Son of man is here to seek and to save that which 
was lost. There, is only despair because there is 
no Saviour there. Christ's recovering work is 
for this world only. Now men may come out of 
their thraldom into sweet liberty. Now the 
bondslave of sin may become the free servant 
of the Lord Jesus. Now the lost may be recov- 
ered and saved. 

And this, superlatively, is the purpose of 
Christ's coming. It crowds everything else into 
the background. On the front of the pictorial 
representation of Christ's work stands the Cross: 
back of it is the lowly manger and the home and 
shop at Nazareth : back of it is the form of the 
teacher with the might}' multitudes hanging on 
His words of life ; back of it are his miracles of 
mercy; blind men opening their eyes on a new 
world ; deaf men listening to the music which has 



CHRIST THE SAVIOUR OF MKN. 87 

never before thrilled them ; dumb men singing 
for joy to the praise of their Healer ; the sick 
rising to duty in perfect health, the lepers clean 
in body and in soul, the dead happy in their re- 
stored life and the demoniacs cleared of their foul 
and base possessions. But, brilliant with its sug- 
gestive meanings, filling the whole picture with 
its light and glory, standing as in memorial of a 
rescued world, hope of the lost and joy of the 
saved, is the Cross on which the Redeemer died ! 
His sufferings were for our salvation. His death 
was for our life. 

It was a favorite symbol of the early church 
which represented the Saviour as a shepherd 
bringing home, on his shoulder, from the peril- 
ous wilderness, the lost sheep which he had 
sought and found. Christian song has celebrated 
with tender terms this representation of the 
work of Christ. It is suggested by his own 
words, in which He presents the divine love 
under the image of a man who has a hundred 
sheep, one of which has gone astray, who 
leaves the ninety-and-nine and goes unto the 
mountains and seeks that which is astray until 
he finds it, when he rejoices more over it than 
over tin ninety-and-nine that went not astray, 
and he says to his friends and neighbors, rejoice 
with me, for 1 have found my sheep which was 

lost. 

We have from Christ's lips, also, the represen- 
tation ol a woman who lost one of ten pieces of 



bb THE MODEL LIFE. 

silver which she had, who lit a lamp, and swept 
the house and sought diligently until she found 
it, and then called in her friends and neighbors 
to rejoice with her because she had found the 
piece which she had lost. We hear also from 
Him the story of the prodigal sun, which has 
moved men of all tongues by its inimitable pa- 
thos, which is concluded by those affecting words 
of the father, " It was meet to make merry and 
be glad : for this thy brother was dead, and is 
alive again; and was lost, and is found." By all 
symbols, through all figurative forms, we are 
brought face to face with a race of lost men and 
with the Lord coming in mercy and by infinite 
service to seek and to find them. He came not 
to call the righteous, but sinners. It was not 
His will, nor the will of His Father, that any 
should perish. His whole life-work found its 
fullest expression in the word, Salvation. 

Was it necessary for this that He should hum- 
ble Himself? He went down to the lowest 
place. Was it necessary for this that He should 
suffer? He not only humbled Himself but He 
became obedient unto death, even the death of 
the cross. From lowly Bethlehem to mournful 
Calvary was a long pilgrimage of atonement. 
Bursting from heaven in their absorbing won- 
der, angel hosts filled the mountain air with their 
exulting gloria, as they announced to the aston- 
ished shepherds, " there is born to you this day 
a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord." 



CHRIST THE SAVIOUR OF MEN. 89 

Following the suggestion of the angels, the 
adoring shepherds found the wonderful babe, 
and returned glorifying and praising God for all 
the things that they had heard and seen. Magi 
from the Orient, guided by a phenomenal star, 
came to this new Light, even to the brightness 
of its rising, bringing, with reverence to the 
Child, their gifts for kings, gold and frankin- 
cense and myrrh. Heaven and earth alike were 
moved by this advent to the sinful world of One 
who had come from the supernal glory. When 
the boy Jesus was twelve years of age, His par- 
ents found Him in the temple, sitting in the 
midst of the doctors, who were amazed at His 
understanding and answers ; and to their won- 
dering inquiry, why it was, He replied, with a 
revelation of His divine origin, that it was for 
Him to be engaged in the things of His Father. 
Since, however, He must know our life, in order 
that He might be its complete deliverer, He 
lived at Nazareth, and was subject to His par- 
ents, and was occupied up to full manhood in 
the avocation of His reputed father. So, too, 
that He might fulfill all righteousness, He was 
baptized of John, was driven of the Spirit to the 
long fast of the lonely wilderness, and met the 
tempter in a three-fold trial and with a three- 
fold victory ; and thus having suffered being 
tempted He can be touched with the feeling of 
our infirmities and is able to succor them that 
are tempted. 



90 THE MODEL LIFE. 

From the walks and occupations of ordinary 
life, men, whom He selected with divine insight, 
and whom He impressed by the peculiar grace 
and majesty of His person, left all and followed 
Him. And then came His short and eventful 
public life, crowded with impressive incidents, 
and ineffaceable on the spiritual records of the 
race. Miracle followed miracle in attestation of 
His divine power and sympathy and love. A 
greater than any of the prophets or wise men of 
old was there. In His voice nature recognized 
the voice of its Creator. Its limpid water 
turned into exhilarating wine at His word. 
The wild sea, tossed in tumult, heard His com- 
mand, " Peace, be still !" and mirrored on its 
placid bosom the twinkle of over-revolving stars- 
Disease disappeared at His more than magnetic 
touch. Health flowed like a blessed river with 
trees of life on its luxuriant banks where He 
dwelt with men. Whole cities and wide re- 
gions felt the restoring power and the healing 
grace of His beneficent presence. Even death, 
at His call, gave back its prisoner to life. 

Memorable were His discourses to the vast 
multitudes who followed Him wherever He 
went. Speaking to their famished souls, hungry 
for spiritual nourishment, He told them that He 
was the Bread of Life, heaven-given, more to 
them than the manna was to their starving fathers 
in the Arabian deserts. He told them that He 
was the Water of Life, of which if they should 



CRRIST THE SAVIOUR OF MEN. 91 

drink they would never thirst again. He brought 
heaven to them, so that here, as there, redeemed 
souls should hunger no more, neither thirst any 
more. He told them that He was the Light of 
the World : that, as in the festal illumination of 
the Temple the people and the priests rejoiced 
with music and dances, so, following and loving 
Him, they might walk in heavenly light, even as 
the nations of the saved in that city which has 
no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine 
upon it : for the glory of God does lighten it, and 
the lamp thereof is the Lamb. He revealed to 
them His equality with the Father: He opened 
the doors of the eternal worlds : He wept over 
the people who were miserably to perish in the 
woes whose blackened clouds were already low- 
ering : He rejoiced in spirit that though His mes- 
sage were hidden from the wise and prudent, it 
was heralded unto babes ; and that He could 
sound forth the call of divine mercy, " Come unto 
me ; and ye shall find rest unto your souls." All 
this, wonderful in deed and in word, led on to 
the tragic event, to the supreme sacrifice, to 
Gethsemane's agony and Calvary's death of min- 
gled terror and triumph. 

Alone, the divine Victim, the Lamb that was 
slain for our sins, endured an anguish of body 
and of mind of which we ean form no conception 
and o! which there is no parallel. It was more 
than He could bear. The weight of our sins, the 
awful burden of our guilt, crushed Him to the 



92 THE MODKL LIFE 

Earth. His cries of agony rent the stillness of 
that darkest midnight. His poor body was torn 
with the torture of His 1 icerated spirit, and His 
sweat became as it were great drops of blood 
falling down upon the ground. His prayer, with 
strong crying and tears, went up to God, His 
beloved Father, with whom all things are possi- 
ble, but who could not take away that dreadful 
cup from Him. The Cross was still before Him, 
with its heavier woe, with its renewed agony, 
with the hiding of His Father's face, with its pub- 
lic infamy and its personal anguish, on which He 
expressed His boundless pity and forgiveness for 
men, and commended His spirit to His Father, 
His great work forever Finished. For the Son 
of man came to seek and to save that which was 
lost. 



VIII. 

THE INDWELLING CHRIST. 



TH mystic monosyllables was ended the 
sublimest and tenderest prayer that ever 
rose from earth to heaven : the prayer 
of our dear Lord for all His followers. Spener, 
near death, caused this prayer to be read aloud 
to him three times : he had never ventured to 
preach upon it, because he thought the under- 
standing' of it went beyond the faith which the 
Lord is wont to impart to His disciples. 

Yet this prayer was for us : and reverently we 
may draw near to the divine oratory, listening 
and learning, as we hear the Christ, in the full- 
ness of His infinite affection, say, in the earnest 
language of a suppliant: "I pray for them: 
I will that they also be with me where I am: 
I pray that they all may be one as thou, 
Father, art in me and I in thee, that the)' 
also may be one in us. I in them and thou in 
me, that they may be made perfect in one." 

You will notice that after the concluding sen- 
tence, " that the love wherewith thou hast loved 
me may be in them," as though His loving heart 

[93] 



94 THE MODEL LIFE. 

dwelt iii an affectionateness that could not allow 
Him to be sundered from them, He adds still 
these last words, " And I in them." 

As a German commentator remarks, "The 
last word of alii after the last, is, " / in them." 
Says another, " This is the last and most ap- 
proved word of this sublime prayer." And 
another remarks, " It is a better seal than any 
doxology or amen." I do not know what it means. 
I do not suppose we can understand the fullness 
of its infinite meanings. We can take something 
of it superficially ; but its interior and profounder 
contents are not a thing of theory or statement but 
of solemn experience. We can go down into them 
only as the Lord takes us down ; only as He re- 
veals Himself to us as an indwelling person and 
presence ! It is not a philosophy that we want, 
but a revelation : not an exegesis, but an experi- 
ence : not logic, but life : not a Christology, but 
Christ. Christ in us : the infinite in the finite : the 
God in the temple of God : the greater in the 
less: this is the reversal of our dynamics, the ab- 
rogation of our human axioms. On the surface, 
it means, that the Lord is in all believers with the 
fullness of His love and the Father's love; that 
lie is in them by His doctrines, teaching them 
of Himself and of His Kingdom, and by His 
Spirit who shows to them the things of Himself: 
and so all the commentators explain it. But it 
means more, far more, than this, " Thou in me 
and 1 in thee, and I in them:" here is the trinity 



THE INDWELLING CHRIST. 95 

of relations out of which comes both the unity 
of believers with one another and their higher 
and more mysterious unity with the Father and 
the Son : " That they all may be one and that 
they also may be one in us." Christ in the saint 
brings the saint into God. So the human, be- 
comes the partaker of the divine, nature. God 
in us and we in God are the relations of the 
supernatural life. How far the realization of this 
mysterious unity affects personality, how fully it 
is comprehended in the conditions of mortal 
life, what may remain for its perfectibility in the 
future experience, we may not be able to state. 
That there is a life in this world which though 
essentially human is also essentially divine we 
may not doubt. That there is a life beyond which 
rises into higher and more perfect degrees of 
this blessed unity we may well believe ; although 
" it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we 
know that when He shall appear, we shall be 
like Him ; for we shall see Him as He is." The 
life in this world runs into the life bevond. 
I [ere it is begun ; there it is perfected. But it 
is one. The union of the Saviour and the be- 
liever is one on earth and in heaven. 

L< aving the more sacred and subtle mysteries 
of the theme, we may look at it outwardly and 
relatively and get inspiration in it for our tasks 
and comfort in it for our trials. 

Man needs some greater one in him. We are 
all controlled by some indwelling principle, pas- 



96 THE MODEL LIFE. 

sion, person. We do not barely live our own 
life, which would be a bare life, if we should 
attempt it. Even those who affect solitariness 
are under the mastery of an overpowering prin- 
ciple or are in slavehood to an imperious passion ; 
their seclusion does not place them alone. From 
the world which they claim to have left, along 
the highways of memory or desire or remorse, 
troop in upon them influences which they can 
shut out by no blockade or isolation. They have 
carried in with them themselves, with the hearts 
they had, with the intellectual progress they had 
made, with the masterful will owning no subjec- 
tion. And although they may hide themselves 
from men and may see no longer their old asso- 
ciates, still are they united by unseen influences, 
powers that work through thoughts and unob- 
structed affections. Man is never less alone than 
when alone. The unpeopled spaces are crowded 
with being. Few can be with us in bodily form, 
but spirits, which take no space, can throng to 
us in innumerable companies. The withdrawal 
from men, therefore, may be the entrance to great 
assemblies. The lone watcher on the solitary 
column, the solitary hermit in the wilderness, the 
devotee in his thick-walled cell, may be thronged 
by those whom his bodily eye may not discern 
but whom his spiritual senses recognize. 

Most men in the world, are controlled by 
sordid passions or low running ambitions. Their 
possessions are of inferior spirits. That in them 



THE INDWELLING CHRIST. 97 

which gives significance to their life is far below 
the claim of their immortality. They are pushed 
on by the passion for pelf : as though it were a 
great object to get property whose title must be 
vacated in a few days: to heap up riches for 
other parties soon to gather or to scatter : to 
hold broad acres of that a few feet of which will 
soon hold themselves. Or they are ambitious for 
place out of which they will be crowded before 
they are fairly seated in it : for power which 
their unsteady or palsied hands can retain but 
for a little while : for honor which will die away 
almost as soon as the huzzas which have hailed 
it. For these lowest worldly, perishable things, 
of one sort and another, the whole being is 
aglow and in struggle. The immortal devotes 
himself, with his fine possibilities, to that which 
is impossible. Try as he will, he cannot be sat- 
isfied with that which is merely worldly. Suc- 
ceed as he may, he cannot find gratification in 
that which has no permanence. 

Yet on these levels the race is run. The world 
only is in men. It possesses them. It absorbs 
their being. Some move to higher moods. 
They would find gratification in noble sentiments. 
The intellectual life is absorbing, Says one, 
" Be sure that there has been great moral strength 
in all who have come to intellectual greatness. 
During some brief moments of insight the mist 
has rolled away, and they have beheld like a 
Celestial City, the home of their highest aspira- 



98 THE MODEL LIFE. 

tions ; but the cloud has gathered round them 
again and still in the gloom they have gone stead- 
ily forward, stumbling often, yet maintaining 
their unconquerable resolution. It is to this sub- 
lime persistence of the intellectual in other ages 
that the world owes the treasures which they 
won. Their intellectual purposes did not break 
their moral nature, but exercised and exalted it. 
All that was best and highest in the imperfect 
moral nature of Giordano Bruno had its source 
in that noble passion for Philosophy, which made 
him declare that for her sake it was easy to en- 
dure labor and pain and exile, since he had found 
in brief labor lasting rest, in light grief 
boundless joy, in contracted exile broadest 
country." Humboldt sold his inheritance that 
he might pursue in remote fields his studies of 
nature. Kane consecrated his mature life to 
unlock the mystery of the Arctic zone. Faraday 
renounced certain fortune for the results of 
uncertain discovery. Livingstone passed out of 
sight that he might solve the unknown problem 
in the heart of Africa. Patriots have given all 
to country. In men have lived and worked 
great and worthy principles to the subjection 
and absorption of their entire nature. Them- 
selves have been but the agents of something 
mighter than themselves, which has possessed 
and controlled them. Sublime ambition, lofty 
work, worthy service, have supplanted all selfish 



THE INDWELLING CHRIST. 99 

passions and worked in the new man with sole 
control. 

Sometimes another man has been in them. 
They have lived a life not their own but this 
other's. The familiar incident of the wounded 
French soldier illustrates this, who said lo his 
surgeon probing and cutting in his breast, " Cut 
a little deeper and you will find the emperor." 
There wns a magic about the emperor which 
s waved his soldiers. They were emptied of 
themselves and he lived in them. To accom- 
plish his designs and not their own was all their 
soldiery. The great emperor marched in them 
on long marches, endured in them in great pri- 
vations, toiled in them over snowy Alps, charged 
in them in the bloody charge, exulted in them 
in magnificent victories, and when they came to 
die, in their heart of hearts was enshrined the 
emperor himself. Forty years after his death, 
four thousand miles from his tomb, I met an 
aged conscript of the immortal emperor. He 
was broken and bowed, and all the forces of his 
life had retreated ; but at the name and mention 
of the great, commander he rose erect as a gren- 
adier <>l France, and the fire of the unconquera- 
ble guard burned within him and he would have 
marched again to Moscow at a signal from his 
dead captain, who, though his body lav in the 
vault of the Invalides, lived in the soul of the 
si tidier. 

Here we conic near to that, which is practical 



100 TnE MODEL LIFE. 

in our Saviour's service. It cannot be doubted 
that there have been and are great numbers in 
whom He has lived as the controller of their life 
and their destiny. Their most absorbing thought 
has been the thought of Him. Their strongest 
and purest and most vital affections have been 
for Him. Their intensest purpose has cen- 
tralized in Him. Their being has been blended 
in His being. He has lived in all their life and 
vitalized everything that has remained in them 
and has proceeded from them. This is putting 
the case strongly : and you may feel rather too 
strongly for any experience that you have 
known. But it is not more strongly put than 
the testimony of the individuals themselves, nor 
than their lives warrant. This prayer of the 
Master came to quick and marvelous answering ! 
No sooner was His life ended than it pissed into 
His followers. It was re-lived in them. They, 
with sublime devotion, entered into that which 
remained o( His work. He was to them more 
than themselves. They were dead. He lived in 
them. Said one of them, the greatest perhaps 
of all in his devotion and service," 1 am crucified 
with Christ : nevertheless I live; yet not I, but 
Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now 
live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son 
of God, who loved me and gave Himself for 
me." As to his own and old personality he was 
dead. The fiery student in the schools of Jewish 
law, the bold contestant of Pharisaic formulas, 



The indwelling christ. 101 

the wild persecutor of every alien faith, was no 
more. Saul, who came with his hot blood from 
Tarsus and issued a zealot from the school of 
Gamaliel in Jerusalem, was dead. But Paul 
lived, yet not Paul, but Christ lived in him. A 
divine power wrought in that great Apostle of 
Christianity. His splendid intellect, which grap- 
pled with the profoundest questions of philosophy 
and theology, was taught of God. His sublime 
eloquence, which over-matched the oratory of 
Rome and on the Areopagus riveted his Athenian 
hearers, and roused men in every place where 
he spoke, was from the divine Spirit who spoke 
in him. The generous and noble and self deny- 
ing qualities which characterized him in all the 
relations of his life, which made him so kind a 
friend, so sweet a comforter, so opulent a bene- 
factor, so patriotic a citizen, so magnanimous a 
foe, so mighty a champion, were all the work of 
God in him. It was the divine energy within 
him which made him first the Apostle to his own 
people and then the Apostle to the Gentiles, so 
that he visited the cities of Syria, and went over 
into Macedonia, and sailed along the capes of 
the Grecian Sea, and stood under the shadow of 
the Acropolis, and maintained the simplicity of 
the gospel in voluptuous Corinth and, by tempes- 
t n. mis seas, made his way to imperial Rome. It 
was by an inspired pen that he wrote his living 
epistles, of which Luther said, " His words are 
not dead words, the)' are living creatures with 



102 the model life. 

hands and feet." His whole life, so full and rich 
and blessed, with memorials in so many import- 
ant places where he himself was seen, and in so 
many other places where he himself was never 
seen, was the Lord's life in him. Nothing could 
separate him from the love of Christ. Because 
Christ was in him his spirit was life. And his 
desire for his beloved disciples was that " Christ 
might dwell in their hearts by faith :" and that 
they might be " complete in Him." 

This wonderful Apostle has had his successors. 
The same cause has led to the same devotion. 
Christ has lived on in imperishable being in those 
who have given themselves to Him. Many a 
lowly life has been glorified by His being in it. 
The missionary records are full of 'the devotion which 
He lias inspired. Friends, home, country, civiliz- 
ation, honors, have been freely sacrificed and left. 
Another life, His life, has taken the place of the 
man's own. 

This is what we want. We want Christ in us. 
If the world is in us, or if we have only ourselves 
in us, we are in great want. The author of Rob- 
ert Falconer writes : " Our hearts cry out, to 
have God is to live. We want God. Without 
Him no life of ours is worth living. We are not 
then even human, for that is but the lower form 
of the divine. We are immortal, eternal ; fill us, 
O Father, with thyself. Then only all is well." 

It is the glory of the Redeemer to dwell in the 
redeemed. His work is not fulfilled until we 



THE INDWELLING CHRIST. 103 

abide in Him and He in us. He has come not 
only to free us from sin but to impart unto us 
Himself. He seeks to make His abode with us 
and to make us temples of Himself. He invites 
us to partake of Him : " He that eateth my flesh 
and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me and I in 
him. " His honor is concerned in the fulfillment 
of His work. Regeneration, to be perfect, not 
only casts out the old possessions of the mind, but 
it enthrones Christ there, and keeps Him there, 
Lord of all. He should have his rightful place. 

And as it is His glory to dwell in them, so it is 
their glory to have Him. It is the chief glory 
of man. All other glories of the earth, of the 
universe, are pale by the side of this. There is 
glory in a crown which has been worn by great 
monarchs: and in a throne which has stood for 
centuries : and in honors which come from old 
universities and from grateful peoples. But the 
glory of having the Lord of glory within one, 
surpasses all other glories. There is honor in 
entertaining a prince or a great scholar or a noble 
citizen : but this honor is given to His saints to 
entertain the Lord Himself. "Abide in me and 
I in you." 

Here is inspiration for service. Not to live 
out <mr lives, but to live out His life who liveth 
in us ; not to honor ourselves, but to honor Him 
who is worthy of the praise and glory of the uni- 
verse : not to serve any inferior being, but to serve 
and please Him who is superior to all other beings, 



L04 



THE MODEL LIFE. 



to whom we owe all that we can do, all that we 
can love, ourselves ; herein is motive sufficient 
to stir all our nature. It has proved sufficient. 
In all the Christian ages the succession of true 
and toiling disciples has been preserved, apostles, 
confessors, martyrs, reformers, saints, in every 
land and in every speech, and they have all 
maintained with unanimous testimony that their 
inspiration has come from the same infinite source, 
their common confession has everywhere been : 
" Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." 

Furthermore, the power of the Church over 
the world must come through the disciples from 
the indwelling Christ. It is not they who have 
power. They receive it. It works through 
them : but it comes from a higher cause. It is a 
divine power. It is Christ who is to subjugate 
the world. But the world cannot see Him. It 
can only see those in whom He dwells. But it 
can see them and it can feel the influence of his 
divine life in them. They may be feeble and un- 
worthy to represent His amazing love. Yet are 
they His witnesses: they stand for Him before 
the world. They are, in their pure and conse- 
crated lives, to set forth His life, in their gen- 
erous and sympathizing love to reproduce His 
love, in their humble places and in their lowly 
service, and with their feeble powers to make 
Christ known as the living, loving, perfect 
Saviour. 

In the grand old capital of Normandy, rich in 



THE INDWELLING CHRIST. 105 

the highly sculptured architecture of a florid era, 
among imposing civil and ecclesiastical buildings, 
rises the magnificent Church of St. Ouen. No 
more gorgeous effect of light and shadow can 
anywhere be seen, than where the many-tinted 
beams stream through its elaborately painted 
windows and are brought into positive effect by 
the dark shade of its lofty buttresses and towers. 
It were hard for the eye, at a single sweep of 
vision to take in the sublime view of its gorgeous 
and lofty interior. But beneath the majestic 
nave is placed a little font, the water of which 
you could almost hold in your double hand, so 
constructed and located that by looking into it 
you can see as in a perfect mirror the stately 
columns and springing arches and the deep vault 
above, with the storied windows and the holy 
altar and all the tracery and adornments of the 
sacred edifice. The vast temple is represented 
in the basin of water. In us should be the image 
of the Lord. The eye that cannot sweep through 
the grandeurof His character and the infinitudes 
of His affection and the depths of His passion 
may be able to see enough of Him in those who 
love Him to be won to His blessed service, may 
find enough in them to awaken admiration and 
to challenge devotion. The heart that cannot 
yet hold so much as Christ may comprehend the 
lowly who are Christ-like. The mind that would 
be lost in the attributes of the divine Lord may 
seek and find Him in the qualities of His faithful 



1(>6 THE MODEL LIFE. 

followers. Let Christ be in us, in our hearts, in 
our lives, and then shall we be His consecrated 
temples. So may we bring the unbelieving 
world to the worship of our Lord. Christ is in 
us and we are in the world that the world may 
be saved by all that we can do for it. Christ is 
in us that we may be controlled by Him, and that 
we may aspire both to be like Him here and to 
be like Him and with Him forever. Christ is in 
us that He may fulfill His own purpose in His 
chosen and beloved people, and through them 
His purpose for a sinful and lost race. 

Come then into our hearts, O divine and be- 
loved One! Abide with us and make us thy 
temples ! 




IX. 

CHRIST'S PRESENCE IN PERPLEXITY. 

HE promise of Christ's presence is for 
the whole Church throughout all time. 
It was, primarily, for the apostles and 
the five hundred brethren who were gathered 
around Him on the mountain from whose summit 
He was to ascend to heaven, who were beginning 
to feel the desolateness of His withdrawal from 
them, the bereavement into which His departure 
would plunge them. They loved Him with a 
strange love, unlike the love which they had 
given to any other, and they wanted Him to 
remain with them as He had been, their Teacher 
and their trusted Friend. But His words 
implied that He was going away and He had the 
upward and far-away look of one who was to 
pass from them into the invisibilities of the 
heavenly world. So, for their comfort and 
peace, He united with His last commission to 
them the encouraging promise: " Lo, I am with 
you alway, even unto the end of the world." 
Ami when lie said, even unto the end of the 
world, 1 le included all those who should believe 
on llim through their word, all who should 
succeed I hem in the work of spreading t he gospel 

[107J 



108 THE MODEL LIFE. 

among- all the nations of mankind down " to the 
last syllable of recorded time." 

It is therefore His word of solace and of joy 
to us, as it will be to those who shall come after us. 

He said : Lo, behold, and rejoice and be com- 
forted in this : I am with you, your very Friend ; 
I whom you have known and loved so well: / 
am ever present, unchanging, Immanuel ; alway, 
all the days, every day, in days of trial, in days 
of joy, in days of gloom and of sunlight, on not 
a single day will I be absent from you : even 
unto the end of the zvorld, through all your labors 
for me and for my kingdom everywhere, until 
you shall be with me where 1 am and shall 
behold my glory ! 

Blessed assurance to every Christian ! To the 
toilers on the frontiers of civilization and to the 
heralds who cry in the dense wildernesses of 
heathenism : to the discouraged preacher in the 
days of supreme indifference, when the gospel 
goes unheeded and the dreams of the world fill 
the minds of thoughtless hearers : to the bereaved 
and lonely children of God, when the only light 
is on the upward path which they have taken 
who have passed into the glowing gates and 
when they wonder at the meaning of those 
occurrences which no philosophy can explain: 
to the weak because His strength is shown to be 
perfect in their weakness, and to the strong 
because they are strong in the strength which 
He supplies: to those who are in the midst of 



Christ's presence in perplexity. 109 

the battle, as to those who are lifting up the 
voice of victory: to the living in all conditions 
and to the dying who can never die because they 
live and believe in Him ! It is not, indeed, any 
more, a visible and bodily presence. The time for 
that is passed. The work for which there was 
that manifestation is finished. It was expedient 
that He should go away, out of sight, into the 
glory which no mortal eye can look upon. But 
in many other ways is He present. 

He is with us by His living Word. That which 
He spake to the ears that listened in Judea and 
Galilee and which inspired pens have preserved 
can never pass out of the thought of Christen- 
dom. It is the sacred truth which is imperish- 
able, which the world needs. It is the light 
which shineth in a dark place. We would have 
answers to great questions. Who is Christ that 
we may believe in Him ? What was His 
mission to this melancholy planet, and what was 
the work that He triumphantly accomplished ? 
What is the meaning ol Bethlehem's manger 
whose lame has gone into the world's poetry 
and has glorified the world's high art? What 
is the lesson of the transfiguration? 

What to us are the cries from dark Geth- 
semane and the miracles that startled the world 
at the mysterious event on Calvary? What 
shall we do to be saved ? We ask in our awaken- 
in- and in our despair and in our hope. When 
is the acceptable time and the day of salvation ? 



110 THE MODEL LIFE. 

How can we become the inheritor of eternal 
life? Whose is the victor)' that overcometh 
the world ? These are the transcendent inquiries 
of human intelligence and of honest endeavor. 
And all these Christ now answers. As truly and 
plainly as he spoke to Nicodemus who came to 
Him by night, or to the woman of Samaria who 
came to draw water from Jacob's well, or to the 
young ruler, who came running to Him with the 
salutation of a learner to a teacher who could 
make no mistake, so does He yet speak to 
us, answering with divine patience and wisdom 
these questions that concern our life and our 
destiny. How readest thou ? In the volume of 
the Book it is written, and the words of life are 
His own words to you, as though you heard 
them from His mouth. He is with us by His 
words, alway, even unto the end of the world. 
No sinner need to be in the dark as to his duty. 
Christ plainly tells him what he must do to 
be saved. No Christian, whatever may be his 
spiritual experience, lacks the sources of con- 
solation and encouragement and enlightenment. 
Christ teaches him of the way, the truth, and 
the life. No man, no lost man, no saved man, no 
man on the road to immortality, can doubt what 
are the things of greatest moment to himself if he 
will study the preserved and luminous instruc- 
tions of the divine Master. Because He has spo- 
ken, men have no excuse for their sins. Because 
He has spoken, the joy of believers may be full. 



chkist's presence in perplexity. Ill 

He is with us by His unobscured example. His 
life was in the sight of the world. It was 
an illuminated life. It shone on all the path- 
ways where He trod. His footsteps have never 
been effaced. We can follow Him in the sweet 
relations of His Hebrew home life : as He passed 
into the solitude of the wilderness for Satanic 
temptation : as He came into the synagogue 
on the Sabbath-day for worship as His custom 
was: as He taught and wrought for the good of 
men : as he went about doing good : as he 
suffered and died for others, carrying their sor- 
rows and wounded for their transgressions. 

All this is before us : a sacred object lesson, 
from which we can learn what we should be. 
It is as though He were still here, leading those 
who love Him, bidding them, as He bade James 
and Peter and John, " follow me." For He left 
us an example, that we should follow His steps. 
Though lie went away, His example remains. 
He did no sin. He delighted to do God's will. 
He was a dutiful child. He was a loving friend. 
Nazareth was made sacred because His child- 
hood was spent there. Bethany became a dear 
name because He so loved one of its humble 
homes. Capernaum came to eminence in human 
thought because His mighty works were 
wrought therein. Jerusalem gained its chief 
renown as the scene of great events in His life 
and tragic death. He pleased not Himself. lie 
took on Him the form of a servant. He was 



112 THE MODEL LIFE. 

about His Father's business. He loved us and 
died for us. We cannot mistake as to what He 
was. We can see Him : we can walk with 
Him : we can feel His touch. No brother is 
more real to us. No friend leaves a clearer 
evidence of what he is. And so again is ful- 
filled His promise Lo, I am with you alway. 

He is with us by the presence and power of the 
Holy Spirit. There is a sacred mystery in the 
three-fold personality of the One Divine Being. 
The Persons arc distinct, and they are one. It 
is a blessed mystery, which glorifies to us the 
Godhead. It is a fact supremely significant. 
It is far more than the unitarian idea of one God 
operating in three modes, revealing Himself in 
three distinct relations to us. He is three 
Persons as truly as any three of you are distinct 
persons, and yet He is but one Being, one God. 
I (one Person) will pray the Father (another 
Person), and He shall give you another Com- 
forter (the third Person). Although we cannot 
explain it, cannot even understand it, we accept 
it as a grateful and profound truth, which states 
to us the glory of Him who must be a mystery 
to us if He be God. 

The doctrine of the presence of the Holy 
Spirit with Christians as Christ gave it is this: 
He comes in Christ's name, to glorify Christ, to 
take of the tilings of Christ and to declare them 
unto those who are Christ's, to guide disciples 
into all truth, to teach them all things and to 



Christ's presence in perplexity. 113 

bring all things to their remembrance that 
Christ has said unto them, and to abide with 
them and to be in them forever. So, as one 
with Christ, He is Christ in them. Christ went 
away that He might send the Comforter, who 
is the Holy Spirit. He, by His spiritual pres- 
ence, could be more to them than Christ could 
be in His bodily presence. So, we have the 
Spirit and having Him we have Christ, forever 
with us. He works in us both to will and to 
work for His good pleasure. God sent forth the 
Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, 
Father. Led by the Spirit of God we are the 
sons of God : and if sons, then heirs, first-heirs 
with Christ in the eternal inheritances of the 
Kingdom ! 

He is with us in our participation of the Holy 
Sacrament of the Supper of our Lord. When 
He instituted it He had respect to His departure 
from His disciples, and so He said, " This do in 
remembrance of me." It is His body and His 
blood that are symbolized in the sacred ele- 
ments, and so partaking of them we do, in a 
sense, partake of Him. It was in the structure 
of the ordinance that it should be observed by all 
believers throughout all time : for He said, " As 
often as ye cat this bread, and drink this cup. ye 
proclaim the Lord's death till He come," i. c., till 
His second coming to judge the world and to 
close the world's mournful and wonderful history. 
So long, in this holy communion, will He be 



114 THE MODEL LIFE. 

with His followers alway even unto the end of 
the world. Here He comes to them in the 
supreme event of His mission to the earth. 
Those who love Him are here in the goodly 
company of His trusted and faithful friends who 
reclined with Him at the institution of the sup- 
per, His beloved apostles, who heard indeed 
His words, " This do," but could not understand 
their meaning, as the event made it plain to them 
and to us. We are among that great company 
of people and of women who bewailed and 
lamented Him. We stand by the cross of Jesus 
with His own mother, through whose soul there 
pierced the sword as predicted, and His mother's 
sister, Mary, the wife of Clopas, and Mary Mag- 
dalene. We bow there with the disciple whom 
He loved and hear His dying words. 

Ah ! that Cross was uplifted for us. Those 
nails were driven because we were the sinners. 
That crown of thorns whose spikes started the 
blood from the forehead of the Master was that 
which we deserved to wear. The spear thrust 
which wounded Him might have properly 
pierced us. The body, sacred body ! was broken 
for us. The blood, blood of Divine atonement! 
was shed for us. As we realize this (and nowhere 
else do we realize it so fully) the Lord seems in- 
deed present with us. We can feel it. His voice 
thrills our souls. His touch vitalizes us. His ben- 
ediction falls onus. As we go away, we say, "He 
whom we love, was with us at the feast to-day !" 



Christ's presence in perplexity. 115 

There is another, more mystic, meaning in 
which He is with us, which is expressed in His 
own words : " Ye shall know that I am in my 
Father, and ye in Me, and I in you. Abide in 
Me and I in you. Apart from Me ye can do 
nothing. We will come unto Him and make 
our abode with Him. 1 am the vine, ye are the 
branches." Such language implies that there is a 
common life of the Redeemer and His members. 
He lives in them, and they live in Him. When 
by faith the soul takes hold of Him, His life 
streams into that soul, as, when a cutting is 
grafted into the parent stock, the life of the stock 
flows into the engrafted wood and it becomes 
thenceforward a part of the one growth. Christ's 
life came into humanity and all human souls 
joined to Him become Christian souls, partakers 
of Christ, one with Him. This is mystery: but 
mystery is everywhere : and this spiritual mys- 
tery is no more unsolvable than the mysterious 
processes which are before our eyes in natural 
growths and changes all around us. 

The outward expression of it is in the Church 
and its membership. The Church is Christ's 
body, outwardly manifesting Him before human 
sight and offering itself to human study. The 
members make it up, enter into such confes- 
sional and sacramental union to it that they are 
constituent parts of it and so members of His 
body, of His flesh and of His bones. They suf- 
fer together: they rejoice together: they serve 



116 THE MODEL LIFE. 

together : Christ and His members one. The best 
name fo: a Christian Church is Inunanuel, God 
with us. This is the Scriptural name of Christ, 
and it therefore proves His essential divinity, and 
it proves also that we, in our union to him, are, 
as St. Peter calls the Christians, " partakers of 
the divine nature." And so, again, is wonder- 
fully fulfilled His word, " Lo, I am with you 
alway, even unto the end of the world." He, 
our Lord, is present with us now, where we are. 
But the days are drawing nigh when we shall 
be present with Him where He is. He \s with us 
now, in all through which we are appointed to 
pass; in joy and in trial; in days brilliant with 
sunlight and in days heavy with enswathing 
clouds ; in our youthful struggles, and in the 
easy victories of our age ; in our quiet home-life, 
and in our battles against the world's opposing 
forces; while we live and when we come to die. 
We live and trust in our Immanuel. 

We shall be with Him then, on the golden 
floors, within the massive gates of pearl, before 
the throne of whiteness, in the light which is 
brilliant as the light of a thousand suns ; forever 
free, yet confirmed in holiness ; like unto Him, 
sharers with Him in a life whose wonderfulness 
even our imagination cannot estimate, advanc- 
ing in strength of holy character and in the wide- 
ness of certain knowledge through milleniums 
that shall never end. 



X. 



BEAUTIES OF THE CHRIST-LIFE. 



EN live in that which most absorbs and 
occupies them. He who gives his 
thought and time and influence and 
means to the success of a political party lives in 
politics. One may so give himself to his daily 
business that he has no care for anything else, 
that he is only a boarder at his own home, that 
he keeps up acquaintance with his wife and chil- 
dren only because of the fortunate recurrence of 
tin- first day of the week on which it is illegal 
and immoral to keep at his avocation, and that 
man may very truly be said to live in his 
business. 

A student may devote himself to some speci- 
alty in science or to some particular branch of 
learning with such absorption of mind and body, 
such daily toil and forgetfulness of everything 
else, that everyone would say that he fairly lives 
in his specialty. 

An astronomer may live among the stars. 

A sailor may be so homesick for the great and 
wide sea when he is ashore, that, his look is ever 
toward it, that his love goes out to the crested 

L"7l 



118 THE MODEL LIFE. 

waves and his heart sings in harmony with the 
deep bass of the ocean, that his gait on land is 
that of one who walks the rocking deck of a ship, 
and that man may be said to live on the sea 
though he may be ashore. 

Patriots have had such devotion to their 
country that it has been a joy to them to give 
their lives to it. " My country was my idol!" 
said an eloquent patriot before he died for it. 

Men have braved polar cold and freezing floes 
that they might rescue their imperiled fellows, 
and so have lived in them. Livingstone lived in 
Africa because he lived and died for it. For 
Bismarck to live is Germany. For some men to 
live is country, or commerce, or science, or 
philosophy, or politics. Intense devotion, un- 
limited absorption or occupation, defines and 
designates life. 

There was a man, in the early history of Chris- 
tianity, who announced, "For to me to live is 
Christ!" That was a new and strange declara- 
tion. Men had lived, as we have seen, for vastly 
different things. St. Paul was then a prisoner of 
the Roman government at the capital. Accord- 
ing to the custom he was chained to a Roman 
soldier. Those of whom he saw the most were 
the blood-stained veterans of the conquering em- 
pire and the slaves of the palace. To them the 
brave apostle made Christ known. And when 
he closed his letter he wrote, "All the saints 
salute you, especially they that are of Ccesar's 



BEAUTIES OF THE CHRIST LIFE. 119 

household." Right there he had made converts 
to the Christian faith, so that in the palace, dark 
with lust and reeking with crimes that cannot be 
mentioned, there were real saints, men and 
women led by the apostle to love the divine 
Christ. The temptations of a voluptuous court 
and the fascinations of a profligate frivolity could 
not make them swerve from a true Christian life. 
For Nero to live was crime and lust. For Paul 
to live was Christ. The palace and the prison 
were opposites. Debaucher}- and infamous vice 
reigned in one. Prayer and hymns, and the invi- 
tations of Christian love, were heard in the other. 

To Paul to live was Christ. And so in prison 
and expecting any day to be summoned for trial 
before the heathen emperor, equally as when 
free; in Rome equally as in Philippi ; he lived 
out the Christ who lived in him. This was his 
new nature. He had been a different man, as 
we well know. But the new creation had passed 
on him and he was a new man in Christ. To 
him, once, to live was rank Judaism: now to live 
was Christ. And all his grand and consecrated 
life proved it to be so. 

Some of us may be aspirants for a similar life, 
all of us should be: and it may be of service to 
consider some of the elements that enter into it 
as a practical experience. 

First of all the individual life must be given to 
Christ. It must, be made over to Him. 

This is the fundamental principle of our 



120 THE MODEL LIFE. 

religion. It is the first comprehensive experi- 
ence that is required in an accepted Christianity. 
The person in coming to Christ, in becoming 
a Christian, must become Christ's. 

He did belong to Himself, or He belonged to 
the world. He made His own will supreme. 
He followed wealth or pleasure or fame or some- 
thing worldly as the one thing that held satisfac- 
tion. But when he was convinced of sin and of 
his need of a Saviour from the power and from the 
guilt of sin, he gave himself to Christ. If he 
did not, if he went only half as far as this, he 
did not, in the deepest sense, become a Christian. 
He may have gone so far as to admire the Chris- 
tian ethics, the morality of Christianity; to 
admire the character of its great and benign 
Founder which lifts Him above all other men of 
all ages ; to admire the kingdom which He has 
set up in this world and which is so manifestly a 
kingdom of power and conquest ; but this is not 
to become a Christian, and no one can truly 
become such unless and until he becomes Christ's, 
so that he can say, like the apostle, To me to 
live is Christ. 

The magic lies in that name. The experience 
consists in transferring one'sself into Christ. 
There is new creation. The old personality 
disappears. We have seen this wrought in 
many cases, and we cannot doubt it. It is a 
conversion. It is a change from one person into 
another person, and the latter more real than 



BEAUTIES OF THE CHRIST LIFE. 121 

the former. Paul was an early and a very strik- 
ing instance of it. The old Saul who hated 
Christ and would have tortured and killed every 
one of His followers, passed off the stage as 
truly as though he had died and been buried. 
No one ever saw him after that fierce ride to 
Damascus. When he fell on the highway before 
the light of a revealing Christ, it was as though 
he had fallen dead. The man who came forth 
from Damascus, in his clothes, was another man. 
His outward appearance, to be sure, was like 
him ; but even that, no doubt, was a good deal 
changed, so that all who heard him were 
amazed. 

But inwardly he was another man. Nothing 
remained of him as he was. New thoughts, new 
hopes, other purposes, a different love, a higher 
life, worked in him. The new Paul came on to 
the stage and the tragedy of a vaster and a 
grander life unrolled its sublime acts. Men for- 
got the old Saul : but they never forgot, and 
never will forget, the new Paul. He left to the 
world a legacy of devotion and service which has 
been an inspiration, which has thrilled our sen- 
sitive natures through all Christian centuries, 
and lias sent forces of revolution and benediction 
into nation after nation, and which to-day is call- 
ing forth from Christian homes and Christian 
schools consecrated youths to carry Christ, whose 
they arc and whom they serve, to lost and be- 
nighted and sinful and suffering men and women 



122 THE MODEL LIFE. 

and children on all continents and pagan islands 
of the sea. 

St. Paul could say, " It is no longer I that live, 
but Christ liveth in me." He was " dead unto 
sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus." He was 
wholly converted, wholly given to Christ. That 
must we be if we would worthily bear the 
Christian name. We cannot use this language, 
" to me to live is Christ" unless we are Christ's. 
And this must carry everything with it. We 
cannot be Christ's, and be at the same time the 
world's, or be self-controlled. We cannot say, 
in a selfish spirit, my property, my time, my 
learning, my business, my influence, for all are 
Christ's. Giving ourselves to Him, we give all 
that belongs to us to Him, and we are not our 
own. 

That is the standard of Christianity. Religion 
never lowers that standard. Paul came up to 
it. Many since his day have come up to it. Many 
in our day are meeting it. For them to live is 
Christ. They do not live, but Christ lives in 
them. Their lives are all active and aglow with 
the Christ whose living heart beats the music of 
their divine walk. 

Also, the consecration to Christ must reveal 
itself, and justify itself, in the visible conduct of 
life. Our Christ is a revealed Christ; He is 
a Christ of the world and for the world. He is 
not a cloistered Christ: He does not keep Him- 
self in the clouds nor in the dazzling glories 



BEAUTIES OF THE CHRIST LIFE. 123 

of heaven. His work, His great redeeming 
work for us, was done in the sight of men, 
on the conspicuous places of the world. He did 
not atone for us in the far heavens, but He made 
our common walks illustrious by His footsteps 
on them, and our common places luminous and 
glowing by His endurances in them. Bethle- 
hem was a town of no great distinction till His 
birth in it lifted it to a glorious renown. Naza- 
reth was a despised village until his life in it gave 
it a wider fame than airy royal city of the Caes- 
ars. Gethsemane and Calvary have inspired the 
poetry of the people by their voices of pathos 
and agony beyond any other great endurances 
of heroes and martyrs, because the memory 
of His voluntary and priceless sufferings rever- 
berates and thrills in their enduring and un- 
forgotten names. He was in the world. He 
was seen among us. The tones of heaven were 
in His voice. The light of heaven was in His 
eyes. The help of heaven was in His hand. We 
beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten 
from the Father. 

And since He went away His followers have re- 
produced his life, in lowly and unworthy ways it 
may be, but in methods and experiences which 
He has graciously accepted and blessed, and on 
which He has pronounced His, Well done. 

It is not enough to experience religion in the 
closet. It is not enough to come alone to God 
in repentance and faith and to make loyal vows 



124 THE MODEL LIFE. 

in private. They who follow the Master will 
follow him openly, before kings and populace, in 
country and in city, in the temple and by the well- 
side. Paul's life was a life of declaration. He 
said, I stand unto this day, having obtained the 
help that is from God, testifying both to small 
and great. He was an open witness and confessor. 
He wanted to know Christ and the fellowship of 
His sufferings. He wanted to be a partaker 
of His sufferings. He would have gone into an- 
other Gethsemane and borne a cross up another 
Golgotha. He said, I fill up on my part that 
which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ for 
the church. He knew what he said, when he said, 
I bear branded on my body the marks of Jesus. 
From our land and from our best institutions 
lately went a young scholar, with the honors of 
high scholarship, with promotion already offered 
to him, to pursue further study with the 
advantages which German research and learning 
might give him. He was possessed of Christ, 
and his devotion was apparent in the daily life 
he lived, in the language which he spoke, in the 
purposes by which he was plainly controlled. 
Among the students with whom he associated 
he was known as a real lover of the Lord. 
His walk attracted the attention of a young 
American who had come to the German capital 
and had engaged in profitable business there. He 
sought in repeated interviews to learn the secret 
of the life which had won his respect and 



BEAUTIES OF THE CHRIST LIFE. 125 

regard. He found it in the remark of his friend : 
"I know of but one thing in this world worth 
living for, to be Christ's and to bring others to 
Him." So different was this from anything in 
his own life that it brought him to the Saviour; 
and he abandoned his brilliant business, returned 
to this country, and established himself in the 
State of Washington, where, with his business, he 
could engage in active Christian work. And this 
was but one instance of many where that life 
wrought on other lives for their union to Christ. 
And when, a few months ago, this young scholar, 
in the Austrian Tyrol, closed his earthly work 
too soon, it was seen that he had not lived in 
vain, for the life that he lived was Christ. 

If we can truly say, to me to live is Christ, 
we must know something of it. Our Christian 
life must be lived out before the world. As, in 
olden time, men saw Him on their streets and 
in their homes and in their assemblies, and knew 
that the Christ was visible, so they must see 
you in places of business and study, in places 
where men are, and know that Christ, in the 
person of one who loves Him and serves Him 
and represents Him to them, is verily present. 
They must see Him in you. 

You must speak His language. Such words 
as those which reached the intellect of 
Nicodemus and the conscience of the woman of 
Samaria, as revealed the young ruler to him- 
self and made Pilate fear, as fell on the sad 



126 THE MODEL LIEE. 

hearts of the multitudes who in their hunger 
and thirst hung on His lips, as led Roman 
officers, awed by His language, to say, never 
man so spake, must be your words to your 
associates and to strangers. You must speak the 
language of heaven in the midst of the Babel 
tongues of the world. Christian songs have 
awakened responsive tones in dull souls, and 
Christian testimony has convinced gainsayers 
of the reality of personal faith in Christ. 

You must interpret the meaning of disciple- 
ship. From you men must know that it means 
Christ, reproduced in His loving spirit, in His 
tender sympathy, in His attractive grace. They 
must see that religion is not a mere profession, 
but that it carries a large, generous, winning 
practice. Light must go out from you into 
darkness and wretched souls, so that duty shall 
be made clear to them, so that they shall see 
the peril of sin, the way of deliverance, the 
attractions of the cross and of heaven. There 
was profound meaning in the words of Him who 
was the Light, of the world, to His disciples, 
when He told them, Ye are the light of the world. 
You must make it clear that your religion is 
one of helpfulness. Help was laid on one who 
was mighty, when our salvation was laid on 
Christ: and the pitiful cry of the helpless to 
Him when He was here, was, Lord help us. 
Men need it now. Involved in sin, tangled in 
the meshes of world liness, taken captive by 



Beauties of the Christ life. 127 

Satan at his will, they want the helping- hand of a 
brother for their rescue. It is for us to give it, in 
His name. 

The joy of giving it, the joy of helping to save 
a brother, is the sweetest joy this side of heaven ; 
it is akin to the joy of Christ who for the joy 
that was set before Him endured the cross- 
Jeannie Deans' words in the " Heart of Mid- 
lothian" are: " It is na when we sleep soft and 
wake merrily, oursels, that we think on other 
people's sufferings. But when the hour o' 
trouble comes to the mind and to the body, and, 
when the hour o' death comes to high and low 
then it is na what we hae dune for oursels, but 
what we .hae dune for others, that we think on 
maist pleasantly." 

We must remember out of what trouble the 
Helper rescued us, when He sought and found 
us. 

" But none of the ransomed ever knew 
How deep were the waters crossed, 
Nor how dark was the night that the Lord passed through 
Ere He found his sheep that was lost. 
Out in the desert He heard the cry, — 
Sick, and helpless, and ready to die." 

Now, if our own personal consecration to Christ 
reveals itself and justifies itself, in such visible 
union to our Lord, it will be no assumption for 
us to say, For me to live is Christ. 

It is the Christian way to live: and, so living-, 
we shall be ready to appropriate the other part of 
the same Scripture, for me to die is gain ! 



XL 

CHRIST THE CONFIDING FRIEND. 

HE new relation in which Christ would 
stand to those who had been with Him 
in His blessed ministry was a relation 
of tender and trustful friendship. He would 
henceforth take them into His confidence ; make 
His joy the joy of them all ; permit them to share 
with Him in whatever there might be in His life 
and work that would take hold of their strongest 
enthusiasms and their impassioned devotion ; and 
to look on with Him to the peaceful termination 
in the mansions of rest which He had promised 
to them. It was a wonderful thing that they 
could be admitted into this relationship of friend- 
ship with Him. They had been servants, and it 
was enough that they should have the honor of 
service under one like Him. Men aspire to the 
service of great, trusted leaders. They offer 
themselves and their fortunes in life-long devo- 
tion to one who is undertaking conquest, who is 
building up national power, or is on a career 
of personal glory. Much more might one be 
satisfied to be, what St. Paul seems to glory 
in calling himself, the servant of Jesus Christ. 

L I2 9 J 



130 THE MODEL LIFE. 

But Christ advances those whom He loves and 
who love Him, to a higher place. " Henceforth 
I call you not servants: for the servant knoweth 
not what his Lord doeth ; but I have called you 
friends; for all things that I have heard of my 
father I have made known unto you." 

It is for us to consider, and to share in, the 
Friendship of Christ. 

We know what it is to pass out of mere 
acquaintance with some one with whom we have 
met and with whom we have conversed and 
labored, into the larger and riper relation of 
friendship. Everything is changed with that. 
Reserve, formality, conventionalism, the barriers 
that separate souls, fall away, and frankness, 
confidence, ease, geniality, freedom, take their 
place. 

We learn more, too, of him who has become our 
friend. We look deeper into his nature and see 
its wealth and strength and loveliness as we 
could not before. We learn to build on him. 
We distrust ourselves until we have stated the 
case to our friend. In his approval we find the 
highest reason. His judgment is judicial with 
us. We enjoy his presence : we take satisfaction 
in labor with him, and the future is brighter by 
reason of this friendship. Now all this and 
more comes of the Friendship of Christ. 

See how it leads the human soul into the place 
of rest. Men are uneasy, disturbed, and they 
ought to be, when they are simply in a state of 



CHRIST THE CONFIDING FRIKND. 131 

nature. There is nothing in sin to produce 
peace. What sort of a condition is that which 
is expressed by enmity with God ? Who can 
have comfort in a world like this who has no 
assurance of a happy future? Christ's great call 
to the troubled world, is, Come unto me and I 
will give you rest. The soul that has the experi- 
ence of His friendship is like a ship that has 
reached the haven. It is out of the storm and 
the fury of wave : it has cast anchor : it rides 
securely in port. For although the Christian 
has trials, although losses and sorrows and many 
adverse things may come to him, yet he has that 
which calms him and supports him and more 
than makes up for all calamities, in the love of 
Christ. He is united to one who knows the 
extreme of sorrow and endurance: whose worn 
feet have gone on every hard path that their feet 
must go on whom He calls His friends : whose 
burdened heart has carried not His own pains 
alone, but the miseries of unnumbered multi- 
tudes, yes, the griefs and the sins of a world. 

And when in the trustfulness of true friend- 
ship the soul learns to lean on Him, it learns that 
it leans on strength, on eternal love, and it finds 
the place of rest, rest for the wearied soul. This 
is the first thing, and it is not the least thing. We 
want anchorage. We want something to take 
hold of, as when the flukes find the ribs of rock 
below the lashed and angry surface of the sea. 
We don't want to be forever tossed at random, by 



132 THE MODEL LIFB. 

any wind or storm : but to be at peace. When 
we repose in Christ's friendship, know that He 
calls us no longer servants but friends, we have 
security, rest now, and the promise of everlast- 
ing rest. 

Notice the reciprocity that goes on between 
those who are united in this friendship. Friend- 
ship implies mutual exchange of love and con- 
fidence and favor. There is a wide difference 
here between the parties. On one side is greatness 
and power, and on the other feebleness and need. 
Yet Christ does not expect from His friends 
more than they can give : He prizes, beyond all 
statement, just what they can give. He does 
not need the things that the world puts first: but 
He does prize affection, faith, loyalty. He pours 
out to Hi, friends the fullness of God's gifts, 
and then He takes from them, and is glad to take 
their confidence and love. And so this peculiar 
friendship waxes: the Great Friend lavishing of 
Divine blessings upon those whom He loves, and 
they offering their tribute of myrrh, and frank- 
incense, and gold as symbols of an affection that 
would gladly give the best it could to One in- 
finitely worthy. 

There springs then a personal interest in each 
other. Being friends, the feelings and the for- 
tunes of each are dear to the other. So gracious 
and personal is Christ's regard for those whom 
He has chosen, that He calls them all by name. 
How dear are the names of our friends to us! 



CHRIST THE CONFIDING FRIEND. 133 

If we hear them spoken anywhere our hearts 
bound in response. They thrill in our souls like 
strains and tunes of most familiar and loved 
music. Christ knows his own, not by looks, not 
by characteristics, nor by walk or manner only, 
but by name. He has a personal knowledge of 
them and a personal interest in them. He never 
forgets them. And they cling to Him. He is 
all to them. The last name they speak is His 
name. The One for whom they would dare the 
most, for whom they would sacrifice the most, 
all other friends, fame, property, life, is He. 
They are devoted to Him. The friendship 
mounts into fiery passion, into consuming love. 

Observe here the basis of unity. Not only are 
they one in Him, so consolidating the kingdom 
which is gathering in the world, but they are 
one of themselves. One fold, one shepherd. 
They who separate themselves from the mem- 
bers, separate themselves from the Head. That 
they all may be one, was His prayer for His fol- 
lowers. And it is delightful to see the unity of 
the church, as drawing its common life from its 
common love. It is enough for me that one is 
Christ's. Our children get their Christ-name in 
baptism : there they become the lambs of the 
flock. But we get Christ Himself when we join 
His body which is His church. And though we 
may have outward denominations by which we 
Stand in the world, to be known by the world, 
they should not separate us in our work or in 



lS4 THE MODKL LIFE. 

our communion. Our unity rests in Christ. It 
is sacred. We should wound Him if we drew 
away from our brethren, for He is in them. 

Out of this friendship starts the inspiratioti of 
service. Great watchwords have rung in battle. 
Caught up in the crisis of struggle, and passed 
from mouth to mouth, they have been in all the 
air, and have fired all hearts with irresistible 
passion. They have saved whole armies from 
rout, and have wakened courage beneath the ribs 
of despair. 

But there has been no watchword like the 
name of Christ, and no inspiration like the love 
of Christ. O'd men have felt it, kindling their 
burned out ambitions. Children have felt it, cre- 
ating new experience in their untried souls. It 
has swept through all ranks, making prince and 
beggar, scholar and dullard, one brotherhood in 
the common service. All barriers have fallen 
down before this sublimest inspiration, and one 
object has risen supreme above creeds and 
nationalities and inherited prejudices. Christ, 
divine Saviour, infinite Friend, has overshad- 
owed all the world. It is a marvel of marvels 
how much men have been willing to do for Him, 
and with what self-forgetfulness they have re- 
sponded to His call for service. It is as though 
there were but one name in all the world to live 
for and one cause to die for. 

W-e read a poem like " In Memoriam," and we 
(eel that the poet's friendship has peopled all the 



CHRIST THE CONFIDING FRIEND. 135 

world and all the universe with emblems and re- 
minders of his lost love. They stand on every 
mountain-side, along every city path : they 
breathe in the airs that blow from every land, 
and flash on the rays of light that stream from 
sun and star: they speak in the unnumbered 
voices that sound in all the tones of nature and 
in cathedral music and the melody of choirs : they 
are as the sails of ships that push forth from port, 
and as the flags that fly toward the piers of home : 
armies of men suggest them and the lonely pil. 
grim as well. 

" I find no place that does not breathe 
tsome gracious memory of my friend. 
Strange friend, past, present, and to be ; 

Love deeplier, darklier understood ; 

Behold I dream a dream of good, 
And mingle all the world with thee. 
Thy voice is on the rolling air ; 

1 hear thee when the waters run ; 

Thou standest in the rising sun, 
And in the setting thou art fair. 

Though mixed with God and nature there, 
I seem to love thee more and more." 

And this, which is the poetry of human friend- 
ship, is the reality of Christ-friendship, He is 
all and in all, and life is but a poor offering to 
bring to Him, and consecration to His name and 
pause is the gladness of being. 

And here we find the basis of prayer. Com- 
munion with Christ on the terms of friendship, 



136 THE MODEL LIFE. 

speaking with Him of the things that concern us 
most, stating anxieties, and fears, and sorrows, 
yes, and sins, and all great matters of experience, 
to Him, as one would do in the utter confidence 
of tried and genuine friendship ; asking the put- 
ting forth of His almightiness and the shaping of 
events in His wisdom, just as we would ask from 
one who had given us proof that he wanted us 
to ask ; what is there so true in prayer as this ? 
This is insured by the place in which Christ 
welcomes us. Not with the cringing, nor the 
remoteness and formality of servants, do we draw 
near to Him ; but in the warmth and confidence 
of a mutual love we speak of all our desires, as 
friend talketh with his friend. Prayer that can 
stand on that basis is genuine and involves 
mutual confidence. " The Lord said, shall I 
hide from Abraham that thing which I do ?" 
"And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, 
as a man speaketh unto his friend." " The secret 
of the Lord is with them that fear Him." 

From this blessed friendship arises Joy fulness 
in death. Because He lives we shall live also. 
W hosoever liveth and believeth in Him can never 
die. When death came to the family of Bethany, 
whose home was His home, Christ said, " Our 
friend Lazarus sleepeth : but I go that I may 
awake him out of sleep." All His friends sleep, 
sleep in Him ; but they will be awaked out of 
sleep by Him. They leave other friends : but 
they go to a closer union and friendship with 



CHRIST THE CONFIDING FRIEND. 137 

Him. He will never leave nor forsake them. 
This world is His : the other world is still more 
His, for it has fuller revelations of Him, and the 
things which are not known of Him here are 
known of Him there. When then we draw near 
to our departure it need not be with any gloom 
or sorrow, but with the joyful anticipation of the 
new meeting of friend with friend. 

To such friendship, so full of all best privileges 
and immunities, are we called. When wegather 
at the Lord's table, it is the table of One who has 
called us friends ; and therefore are we there. 
He meets us as we come, and says, " Eat, O 
friends: drink, O beloved." These symbols are the 
pledges of the best friendship that this world has 
known. It is a friendship that sanctifies all other 
friendships. It is a friendship that survives all 
other friendships. It is a friendship that glori- 
fies all who are admitted to it. 

Blessed are we if we value our calling ; if we 
adhere to Christ ; if through changes and through 
conflicts and trials we hold on with unfaltering 
constancy to the hand of our clearest Friend ! 
Fur that hand will surely lead us home. 



XIT. 

CHRIST IN SYMPATHY WITH THE SORROWING. 



(DFjjgnj I I K E E times the Son of Man is repre- 
jR*5g3a| sented as in tears. We cannot think of 
I t Ktyy il Him as in a light or trivial mood. He 
was here on serious, earnest, burdensome busi- 
ness. Undoubtedly He wore an expression of 
calm happiness as well as of intense sympathy. 
The joy with which children sprang to His em- 
brace indicates His loving and pleasant look. He 
was an invited guest at a marriage festival of those 
who knew Him, where His cheerful presence 
gave to the blessed estate an uncommon bene- 
diction. He closed His most tender parable 
with the sentiment, " It was meet to make merry 
and be glad : for this thy brother was dead, and 
is alive again : and was lost, and is found." The 
poor and distressed ever came to Him with hope 
and confidence : were attached to Him, and not 
repulsed by any look of His. It was only willful 
sinners who could not. bear His majestic holiness. 
We may believe that the multitudes who 
thronged around Him were won by a tenderness 
which touched their deepest sensibilities and by 
a divine winsomeness which was a reflection of 
His own heavenly glory and bliss. 

[139] 



140 thb Model life. 

But three times he is represented as a man of 
sorrows and acquainted with grief, as the weep- 
ing Christ. 

The first was in His sympathetic grief and 
tender friendship for His friends, Martha and 
Mary, when their brother Lazarus had died. 

The second, was in His deep sorrow for Jeru- 
salem, when from the Mount of Olives He looked 
down upon its glory and thought of its approach- 
ing doom. 

The third, was in the more than mortal agony 
of Gethsemane, when alone He sunk under the 
crushing weight of the burden which He bore 
for the world. 

In the first case, there was the silent flow of 
tears as He walked with the bereaved sisters, 
who, in answer to His question, Where have ye 
laid him, had replied, Lord, come and see. 

In the second case, it was with loud bursts of 
grief and voices of lamentation which could be 
heard by all the company who were going up 
with Him to His triumphal entry into that city 
whose fate He so bewailed. 

In the third case, it was with groans and 
agonizing cries, when in agony He prayed more 
earnestly and His sweat became as it were great 
drops of blood falling down upon the ground. 

"Jesus wept." This is the shortest sentence 
of Scripture, but it holds the largest meaning. 
It stands forth in the narrative, quite by itself, as 
though printed in letters of gold. In that gospel 



SYMPATHY WITH THE SOHKOWING. 141 

which most fully declares the divinity of Christ, 
wns brought out this strongest trait of His 
humanity. Jesus loved Martha and Mary and 
their brother Lazarus : and they all loved Him 
with devoted affection. Their home was His 
home : and whenever He was in their neighbor- 
hood He knew where He would be received 
with the warmest welcome. From His work 
in the great and wicked city He enjoyed the re- 
tirement at evening in this quiet home of Bethany 
and among these loving friends. 

On a missionary tour, He received, one day, a 
message from the sisters, Lord, behold, he whom 
thou lovest is sick. When He reached the place 
he had been in the tomb four days already. Very 
touching was His meeting with the bereaved 
sisters: and their loneliness and loss, and the 
sorrowing words which they spoke of their 
brother, and the trustful words which they 
spoke to Christ, reached the deepest fountains 
of His sympathy, and when He saw Mary weep- 
ing and the friends who came with her also 
weeping and wailing, His own tears flowed in 
silence, and the Jews who saw it said, Behold, 
how lie loved him ! 

It is a new revelation of Christ. Miracles had 
shown His power. He had turned water into 
wine. He had fed thousands with a few barley 
loaves. He had stilled the tempest and walked 
on the rocking sea. He had healed the sick, 
and restored speech to the dumb, and given 



142 THE MODEL LIFE. 

sight to the blind, and raised the dead to life. 
He had spoken with authority, and not as the 
scribes. He had indicated, by great words and 
deeds, His title to a supreme divinity. But here 
in His deep sympathy with beloved friends in 
their sorrow He showed how strong and true 
was His humanity. 

That scene of sadness sanctifies Christ to us in 
all our sorrows. We have not an High Priest 
that cannot be touched with the feeling of 
our infirmities. The old prophecy was fulfilled 
in Him, " Surely he hath borne our griefs and 
carried our sorrows." All our bodily ills, all our 
mental anguish, are within His tender sympathy 
and His sufficient help. When He was here, 
it is told of Him that " He healed all that were 
sick," so that the old word was made true, 
" Himself took our infirmities, and bare our dis- 
eases." And what He was while on earth, that 
is He now in the heavens, where He keeps 
the names of all who love Him. In every sick 
room He is present, more sympathetic than any 
of His ministers, greater to heal than any physi- 
cian. With you He watches the slow ebbing 
of the life of one in whom your life, all the 
happiness of your life, is bound. The stealthy 
progress of fatal disease is within His cogniz- 
ance, and He ministers to the sick out of the full- 
ness of His grace. You have seen how the sick 
ripen in character, mature in all lovely graces, 
get the expression of heaven on their faces, and 



SYMPATHY WITH THE SORROWING. 143 

the disposition of heaven in their souls. You 
have seen how those who naturally had a strong 
fear of death, to which they were in bondage all 
their life-time, have overcome all dread of that 
Coldstream through which our feet must pass and 
have come to anticipate with calm serenity the 
time when they should be summoned from home 
and friends and all the endearments of this life. 
You have seen the moral sublimity of that vic- 
tory which has issued in immortality, when the 
songs of Paradise have rung in earthly homes, and 
the angels hive come down to be the convoy of 
the spirit released from the flesh. 

You have seen how the old could joyfully 
abandon that to which they had become used 
throughout a lifetime, and how the young in the 
full flush of anticipation could give up all that 
they had fondly looked forward to that they 
might obey the call to come up higher. All 
this is of Christ. He whose silently flowing tears 
were mingled with those of Mary and Martha, 
has come with his tender sympathy to the sick 
room and the dying bed, and has wrought the 
patience of hope and the cheer of triumph in the 
souls that he was fitting to dwell with Him. 
And after the blow has fallen ; after the house- 
hold has lost its head and the sister is plunged 
into sadness for the brother who is no more, He 
comes again to the home where He loved to 
dwell and to the mourners who were always 
His Iriends, and says, " I am the resurrection 



144 THE MODEL LIFE. 

and the life; he that believeth in me, though he 
die, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and 
believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou 
this ?" And then, through tears, the soul turns 
to Him : "I have believed that thou art the 
Christ, the Son of God." The tears of the Son 
of man give revelation to the Son of God. In 
every darkened home sits one with a form like 
that of the Son of God. With every Mary and 
Martha, with every sorrowing group on the way 
to the grave, walks one who can say, and will say, 
to the dead, Come forth. He mourns with every 
mourner. " Jesus wept." 

We pass to the second instance. 

" And when He drew nigh, He saw the city, 
and wept over it." The Greek language 
expresses here, what our English tongue does 
not, a difference between this weeping and the 
weeping at the grave of Lazarus. There it is 
eddupvffev, from the verb to shed tears : here it 
is snXavffsv, from the verb to wail, implying not 
only the shedding of tears, but also every 
external expression of grief. Accompanied by 
a great multitude of His disciples, our Lord had 
left Bethany for a triumphal entry into 
Jerusalem, two miles away. As the procession 
gained the summit of the Mount of Olives, the 
renowned city of the world lay in grand 
panorama before them. Every spire sprung to 
the glittering sky, and the golden roof and the 
white marble of the temple and of palaces shone 



SYMPATHY WITH THE SORROWING. 145 

in the glory of morning sunshine. On the 
whole earth there was then no such sight as 
that. The temple was the wonder of all lands. 
Old associations made Jerusalem the one sacred 
city. There Almighty God had enthroned His 
worship and revealed His glory. 

Yet that city, proud and glorious, was now 
about to reject Christ, its Messiah, once and 
forever. 

He was coming to it with His divine love, 
with His offers of salvation, to make it a 
perpetual praise and a joy to the whole earth. 
But He foresaw the melancholy result — His 
betrayal, trial, mocking, crucifixion. From the 
Mount of Olives He saw on another mount a 
cross, and for Him. He saw also the end, the 
pitiful doom, for the city: how another wall, of 
Roman besiegers, should be built outside its 
wall ; how those unconquered legions of the 
world's mistress should surround it; how the 
children within it should be dashed to death ; 
how its strong ramparts should be leveled and 
be buried as they are to-day twenty feet under 
ground ; and how, alas ! all this temporal ruin 
should be the prophecy of an eternal ruin for 
the souls of its people. 

Before, at the grave, He had wept in silence. 
Here, over the doomed city, He wept in loud 
lamentation. Before, he wept for others' sorrow. 
Here, He wept for others' sin. 



146 THE MODEL LIFE. 

And as much as sin is greater and sadder than 
sorrow, so greater and deeper was his grief. 

It was the sin of Jerusalem which caused this 
profound sorrow of the Son of Man. It would 
be cast down from its worldly throne. The wor- 
ship of its temple would be obliterated. A curse 
would rest on its people. 

Years after its overthrow, an attempt was 
made to rebuild it, but fires burst forth from its 
foundations and drove the builders away. It 
was doomed. 

Wherever there is sin there is a sorrowing 
Saviour. He brings the blessings of His salva- 
tion to guilty men. They are free to accept or 
to reject them. But if they decide to reject, 
there is One who weeps for them, if they do 
not for themselves. His compassionate sorrow 
follows them to the end. 

He has a heart of love for even His enemies. 
He would not have them to be lost. He knows 
the bitterness of sin's end, the remedilessness of 
the sinner's overthrow. His mind goes on beyond 
the present, where their minds stop, into the 
future with its certain misery, with its hopeless 
and endless sorrow. He knows the meaning of 
hell, the terrible woe of being lost, the dreadful 
society of devils, the utter anguish of final 
despair. He looks beyond thoughtless life, 
beyond the gloom of death, beyond the sentence 
of banishment, into the countless ages of the 
soul's wretchedness, into the unbroken loneli- 



SYMPATHY WITH THE SORROWING. 147 

ness and sorrow of a world on which no day- 
light rises, in which no glad song is heard, where 
are no greetings of friendship, throughout whose 
gloomy boundaries no gospel is heard forever- 
more. He knows the facts of the case, and appre- 
ciates them. His eyes overflow with tears as 
He looks on any unrepentant sinner. His heart 
breaks with sorrow, as He feels for any penitent 
rejector of His grace. You laugh your life 
away. But on Olivet stands one who laments your 
folly and presumption. You squander your 
golden opportunities. But a divine Saviour, 
with unsounded pathos, mourns for your wretch- 
ed choice. Over you, as over miserable Jerusa- 
lem, He laments, in words, which like minor 
music, have sobbed through the centuries, say- 
ing: If thou hadst known, even thou, in this 
day, the things which belong unto thy peace ! 
but now they are hid from thine eyes. He 
laments your spiritual blindness : sees how Satan 
is leading you blindfold to a ruin whose mourn- 
fulness mocks all thought: and though He 
would save you, understands that you know not 
the time of your visitation. 

Do we so weep for sinners? We do not know 
when the fatal line is passed. We do not know 
when the last hour of hope has sounded. We 
do not know when the eye is glazed forever. 
We do not know when the hardening of the 
heart has progressed to the last extremity. We 
do not know when the candidacy for hell has 



148 TIIK MoDEI. 1.11 I . 

ripened into reprobation. We hope, and hope, 
and hope on. 

We pass to the third instance. 

It is described in the Epistle to the Hebrews. 
" Who in the days of His flesh, having offered 
up prayers and supplications with strong crying 
and tears unto Him that was able to save 
Him from death." This refers to His experience 
in Gethsemane. Into that lonely garden He had 
retired, leaving eight apostles just outside its 
boundary, taking three apostles into its recesses, 
and then going alone into the still deeper shadow 
of its olive trees. We do not know what that 
experience was. Words are poor to describe it. 
There were no human witnesses of it. I give 
now the language of Scripture. He began 
to be sorrowful and sore troubled. He said, 
" My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto 
death." He fell on the ground, and prayed that 
if it were possible the hour might pass away 
from Him. He said, " Father, remove this cup 
from me ; howbeit, not what I will, but what thou 
wilt." " And there appeared unto Him an angel 
from heaven, strengthening Him. And being 
in an agony He prayed more earnestly, and His 
sweat became as it were great drops of blood 
falling down upon the ground." 

In this loneliness and sorrow, with strong cry- 
ing and tears, was the experience of the Saviour 
in the work of our redemption. The sins of the 
world were upon Him. It was more than He 



SYMPATHY WITH THE SORROWING. 149 

could bear alone. It was not the agony of 
death : that came later, upon the cross. It was 
the agony of soul. It was more than death. It 
was bearing the death of all sinners. The agony 
of Gethsemane was a part of the passion which 
culminated on Calvary. 

It was the preparation for the cross. 

You that have eyes can see Him there. 

You that have ears can hear His mournful 
sorrow. 

You that have hearts can feel some sympathy 
for that Sufferer, who is more than man, who is 
suffering for you ! 

Out of those dismal shadows breaks the 
voice of piteous petition, crying to God for 
relief. The voice that hushed the turbulence of 
storms, that bid the dead come forth from tombs, 
there trembles in anguish, in cries almost of.des- 
pair. Dimly there, now on His knees with hands 
uplifted to the frowning skies, then prone on 
the cold earth in writhing suffering, is the form 
that entered the door of Mary and Martha with 
benediction, that stood among the gathered 
multitudes as the representative of heavenly 
blessings. A strong angel, swiftly flying from 
the appalled heavens, lifts up the wounded man 
of sorrows, and girds Him with the strength 
<>f God. Yet it is only that He may pray more 
earnestly. The paroxysm of agony returns upon 
Him with redoubled force and He is covered 



150 THE MODEL LIFE. 

with drops of blood which fall down upon the 
ground. 

It is the cost of sin. It is the burden of our 
woe that crushes Him. It is expiation for us 
that rends Him with such frightful torture. 
The cup which belonged to us to drink is that 
which could not be removed from his sinless lips. 
His strong crying and tears measure our release 
from a pitiless doom. 

These are the three instances of the tears of 
Christ : Bethany, Olivet, mournful Gcthsemanc. 
Tears of silent sympathy : voiceful lamentations 
over a sinful city: strong cries of agony under 
the burden of the world's redemption. 

Tears for your sorrow : tears for your sin : 
tears for your salvation : tears that you might 
weep not in vain : tears that you may weep 
nevermore again ; that you may be of those for 
whom God " shall wipe away every tear from 
their eyes." Sorrow you will have. This world 
is a " vale of tears." Sacred circles must be 
broken. Disappointed hopes, loneliness, want, 
grief, these are the terms of human life. 

With all that is joyous; with the sweetness of 
blessed friendship : with the exuberance of youth 
and the calm delight of age ; with the charm of 
music and the ministry of art and the solace of 
truth : there must be the sorrow of partings and 
the sense of loss. Sometime we shall walk alone. 
Somewhere we shall know our weakness. 



8YMPATHY WITH THE SORROWING. 151 

We shall need Him who mingled His sorrow 
with that of the sisters of Bethany. 

Sin is a present and a gloomy reality. It 
taints our blood ; it spoils the fair earth ; it 
forces on us the curse of God. From it there 
would be no relief, no redemption, were it not 
for the sympathy and the sorrow and the suffer- 
ing of the Son of God. He who looked down 
from Olivet on sinful Jerusalem with loud 
laments for its folly and its guilt, is equally 
moved in our behalf. He discerns the day of 
our visitation. And now, while the offer of His 
salvation is open, and while we have the oppor- 
tunity to repent and believe and be saved, He 
would have us fly to the shelter of His cross, to 
the welcome of His arms. 

Learn these melancholy lessons of the Sav- 
iour's sorrow. Walk with Him to the tomb of 
Bethany. Stand among the rejoicing multi- 
tude on the summit of the Mount of Olives, 
hushed by the sorrows of their Lord. And, 
then, enter the shadows of sad Gethsemane. 

And let our hearts be broken, with fullest 
gratitude, with deepest repentance. 



XIII. 

CHRIST THE ZEALOUS LEADER. 

fgaiHE great artists have chosen fortheirim- 
[§« mortal works the impressive events in 
*S|H1 the life of Christ. The great galleries 
of older lands contain nothing so attractive as 
the pictures which represent to us the Lord. 
The holy cathedrals are made more sacred by 
those unrivaled paintings which set forth the 
life and the dying of Him for whose glory the 
temple itself was reared. Scenes in nature are 
subordinate to the Author of nature. Repre- 
sentations of the greatest human achievements 
cannot rival those which relate to Him in whom 
all men live. No pastoral scene so moves our 
hearts as the sacrifice of the Lamb who was slain 
for our sins. Before every leader is He who 
leads the race from their dreadful bondage out 
into the liberty of the sons of God. Christ's 
work is foremost. Christ's person stands out in 
unrivaled prominence. Sacred and high art 
can select nothing which will live in the life of the 
ages like the undimmed deeds and the eventful 
experiences of the Lord. Men sweep across the 
stage as in a drama : and the results of their life- 
work pass into oblivion. But the divine Re- 

l'53l 



154 



THE MODEL LIFE. 



deemer moves on in unchanging pre-eminence,the 
foremost figure of the world's marvelous history, 
the head of a kingdom whose progress widens 
with the centuries and whose power augments 
from age to age as its conquests include more 
hearts and divers nationalities. 

One scene has been wrought by the hand of a 
great Master, into an impressive picture, which, 
once seen, cannot be forgotten. It is in the open 
way of the country of Galilee on a roadside 
leading to Jerusalem, that city of joy and of 
glory to which all the tribes went up for their 
national festivals, that a striking group of stal- 
wart men are represented as walking forward. 
One among them is a Leader and a teacher. He 
had been telling them in His wonderful way of 
the great things of His kingdom and of Himself, 
so that they were " astonished at His words," 
so that " they were astonished out of measure." 
As they went forward, as they drew nearer to 
the time and the place of His sufferings, a kind 
of sublime enthusiasm possesses Him ; and He 
moves in rapt and absorbed devotion, and with 
quickened step, to the front of the company, as 
though hastening to the sacrifice ! A holy light 
kindles His whole countenance and His entire 
person assumes an air of majesty. 

As they look upon Him they see the Divinity 
that is in Him registering itself in every ex- 
pression and every step. It is more than an 
intrepid leader who is marshaling them for the 



CHRIST THE ZEALOUS LEADER. 155 

trial. It is the God in Christ ! " And Jesus 
went before them." They are awed by the 
sight. It is a new revelation of their Master. 
They do not know Him yet. They are begin- 
ning to comprehend the wonderful faculties of 
their divine Leader. They feel how far He is 
above them. Dim dawnings of the truth of 
which He has long taught them flash and lighten 
in their minds. 

" And they were amazed ; and as they followed 
they were afraid." It was not the fear of the 
result. It was the awe of Him that was upon 
them. They were walking now in the footsteps 
of one whom they could not fathom : on whom 
were the signals of divinity : the mystery of 
whose Being and whose work He was evidently 
leading them to the quick solution of. He could 
not wait. A holy passion was burning within 
Him, preparatory to the great final passion. 
The world was waiting to be saved : He would 
hasten to its salvation. One over- mastering 
purpose controlled all others, absorbed all 
thoughts, all plans, all friendships, and in the 
strength of it He moved right forward, leading 
His disciples and leaving to them the impressive 
memory of His sublime and courageous devo- 
tion. 

I have thought that in this scene on the high- 
way of Galilee we might get the suggestion of 
what. Jesus is and is to be to us on many paths: 
of what He is as going before His people. 



156 THE MODEL LIFE. 

So we come to The Antecedence of Christ. 

His footsteps are foregoing in the ways of our 
human life. It is pleasant to think that Christ 
has been here. There is a peculiar charm in 
the places that have been associated with the 
daily lives of good great men. AVe like to feel, 
as we visit the homes and the haunts of such, 
here dwelt the great scholar, the thrilling singer, 
the devoted patriot, the earnest saint. On 
these paths he often walked : in these bowers he 
refreshed himself. We are sitting in the seat he 
occupied. We are looking on the beautiful 
objects which feasted his sight. Out of the rich 
court of Magdalen College at Oxford, by the 
banks of the little Cherwell and under shadowy 
old trees, is a walk which is still called 
" Addison's walk." There he loved to go. At 
Forest Hill near Oxford, where Milton lived, one 
feels, these are the very paths on which the great 
Puritan scholar and poet walked : these are the 
charming scenes on which he gazed and from 
which he caught his inspiration. As he sings : 

" Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures, 
Whilst the landscape round it measures." 

At Lincoln College are the very rooms where 
John Wesley studied. Helvcllyn is to the scholar 
another Parnassus because he feels as he climbs 
its steeps that the feet of Scott and Wordsworth 
and Southey in company have walked there be- 



CHRIST THE ZEALOUS LEADER. 157 

fore him. The chair of Calvin is still preserved 
in the pulpit where he preached. The oak still 
grows on the spot where Luther burned the 
Papal bull. The world is full of such associations. 
The world is made holier and lovelier by them. 
We are held to it the stronger because these 
worthy ones have had their experience in it. 
And if this is so of our fellow-men how much 
stronger and dearer the impression from the an- 
tecedence of Christ in it! He has been here. 
He has dwelt among us. He has walked on these 
ways. He has looked upon these scenes. He 
hasfelt the throb and stir and glow of this human 
life. The Son of God has been the Son of man. 
It is not a difficult thing, as it seems to me, to 
accept the Divinity of Christ: I have more sym- 
pathy with those who fail to comprehend His 
full humanity. His whole life is crowded with 
the incontestable proofs that He was more 
than man. Divinity flames in speech and act 
and impressive presence ; in the unrepressed 
witness of evil spirits and the joyful voices of 
angels; in the subordination of nature and in the 
decisive testimony of the Father. Yet He was 
also man, with a human body and a reasonable 
soul. It behooved Him to be made like unto His 
brethren. He was born as we are born. He 
grew in stature and in wisdom. His childhood 
was under the conditions of tutelage and obedi- 
ence. His manhood was tested by temptation 
ami discipline and the variety of earthly trial. 



158 THE MODKL LIFE. 

He was not lifted above the lot, nor shielded 
from the vicissitudes, of our mortal life. Even 
the divinity, with which His humanity was in- 
timately associated, did not so hedge Him round 
that He did not feel as we feel, rejoicing in the 
things in which we rejoice and saddened by the 
things that bring us sorrow. On all the ways of 
our human life His blessed footsteps are fore- 
going. Everywhere we may say, Jesus has been 
here before us. The prints of His feet are on 
the earth. He walked here as a man before us. 
He had a human body and it was susceptible to 
the influences which act upon us. A day of 
hard labor or long travel brought to Him weari- 
ness. He experienced physical exhaustion, and He 
gained restoration from sleep and quietness and 
the ministry of attentive friendship. He was 
sensitive to pain. The thorn that wounds us 
wounded Him. The blow that would make our 
nerves quiver shocked all the sensibilities of 
His refined organism. The nail, the spear, met 
acutest response to their dreadful wounding. 
His body was alive at every point; every fibre 
was charged with intensest sensitiveness. His 
eye reveled in the loveliness of the lily and the 
glories of the western sky. His responsive ear 
caught the majestic music of nature and thrilled 
at the matchless songs of birds. He was in 
quick sympathy with nature. He saw more in 
its manifold moods and its wondrous vestures 
and its beaming glories than our feebler vis- 



CHRIST THE ZEALOUS LEADER. 159 

ion can discern. While He suffered more He 
also enjoyed more. His whole bodily system 
and nature were attuned to finer harmonies and 
to keener pangs than belong to men. So He was 
Leader of all, ranking all, preeminent among 
them, above them, as before them. 

He had also a human mind. His intellectual 
faculties were developed by observation and 
study and experience. He grew in wisdom. 
His feelings were powerfully acted upon by what 
He saw of human conduct and by what He knew 
of the inevitable and far-reaching results of 
actions. His pitiful lament for human weakness 
and wretchedness, sounds like the voice of a 
brother in his agony. His heart is almost 
broken. While His passions flamed with a holy 
indignation against sinners who were bold and 
bad in their iniquity, He was touched by the 
world's great sorrows, which surged in upon 
His great nature like waves, moaning and broken. 
To all the afflicted He was a friend. It was a joy 
to Him that by His power, He could rescue from 
death the son of a lonely widow, and give him 
back to his mother: that He could heal the sick : 
that He could restore the lame and comfort the 
distressed, and be the Healer of the world's 
wounds. 

His whole life was controlled by the overmas- 
tering purpose" to be about His Father's business 
and for the glory of God to save the world. 
Temptations came. The worldly and even the 



160 THE MODEL LIFE. 

Satanic appeal was made to Him : but He had 
no vulnerable point. There was no joint in the 
harness that panoplied the Son of God. His whole 
mind and soul and strength were enlisted in the 
one work that he had to do. He went before 
all His followers in His mental devotion to His 
absorbing and loving service. The mind that 
was in Christ should be in all of us. Over the 
world's claims and all the demands of friendship 
and ambition and business, should be the one 
claim of the race to be saved. For this should 
be the expenditure of choicest thought, the quick- 
ening of intensest feeling and the devotion of 
solemn, sacramental purpose. 

Christ had also a human experience. He was 
made like unto His brethren. He was a member 
of a certain family. His voice uttered the dear 
names of father and mother and brother and 
sister. He loved and was loved. There were 
those whom He called preeminently His friends. 
Love and devotion and sympathy were dear to 
Him. After days of wearing toil and peril, He 
eagerly sought the home at Bethany and was re- 
freshed in its peace and rest and loving hearts 
and hands. In the coldness and desertion of the 
world, He turned with longing tenderness to 
His disciples, with the question, " Will ye also 
go away ?" He reached out for comfort and 
support. Having loved His own which were 
in the world He loved them unto the end. 

He felt also the might and woe of trials. He 



CHRIST THE ZEALOUS LEADER. 161 

was despised and rejected by those whom He came 
to save. He was abandoned and betrayed by one 
whom He had called into his own family. Though 
He had entered Jerusalem as a King, He was led 
out of it as a malefactor. So honor and shame, 
joy and pain, love and cruelty, were mingled in 
His human experience. In it all He went before 
His people, in their varied and mingled experi- 
ence. I might make this more personal to us by 
saying that He has gone before each one of us in 
the allotments of our earthly life. We have a 
personal experience: we walk each one in his 
own way: in some particular in a different way 
from that of any other. Though we have a life 
that is common to our fellows, we also have one 
that is uncommon and particular. While we are 
allied to our brethren, we are separated from 
them. They cannot know all that we know, 
nor feel all that we feel. But we are not sepa- 
rated from Christ. So wide was His experience, 
so much was He able to take in of the life of 
men, that it is as if He had walked on every way 
on which His people go. And I venture to 
believe that the universal thought and feeling of 
all Christians in the manifold ways of their earthly 
life, are, that Christ has been there before them, 
so that they can state their case to Him and go 
to Him with the assurance that He can feel for 
them, that He has known something of it by his 
own earthly discipline, as though He had walked 
on that very path, and been through that very 



102 



THE MODEL LIFE. 



door, and left His blessed footsteps for them to 
walk in. 

The Lord became man. The Word became 
flesh and dwelt among us. Our whole life gels 
its deepest significance from the fact that this 
has also been His life. We look on the world 
differently when we think of it as sanctified and 
glorified by the life of its Creator upon it. We 
walk with greater trust and firmer hope and more 
abundant joy because we are on paths where the 
Lord, our Lord, went before us. 

He has gone before us in the way of Atonement. 
It was a great problem to solve, how sinful men 
could be restored to favor and union with God. 
Probably there was but one way in which this 
might be ; by the voluntary sacrifice of the Son 
of God. No expedients that lay within the con- 
ditions of human conduct or offering could have 
availed. No intervention, as of angels, could 
have secured the needful reconciliation. On 
the one hand man was lost. The fact of sin was 
fatal. It could not be overlooked. It could not 
be forgiven. The interests of the world and of 
other worlds, the sanctity of the divine law and 
its claim on moral beings, required satisfaction. 
God alone could help. He who was injured, 
whose authority was insulted, was the only being 
who could interpose to sustain the law and to 
save the sinner. God enduring on account of 
sin and for sin ; God proving in His own person 
and bv His own suffering the worth and sanctity 



CHRIST THE ZEALOUS LEADER. 163 

of the broken law, as well as the value of the lost 
soul ; would make atonement possible. 

This was the work of Christ. He went for- 
ward to meet the claims of this necessity : going 
before every sinner to make reconciliation for 
him with God possible: leading the race out of 
bondage, by a new and living way, He came to 
save that which was lost. God sent His Son in- 
to the world that the world through Him might 
be saved. Christ hath once suffered for sins that 
He might bring us to God. We are to follow 
Him. He has gone before us on this way of 
reconciliation. He has suffered that we may be 
free from endless suffering. He has borne the 
cross that the burden of sin may be lifted from 
us. He died upon the cross that we might gain 
everlasting life. 

He has gone before us into the heavenly rewards. 
He was on the earth, walking before His people 
on these paths of earthly experience, at last 
dying to open the way of Atonement. But His 
home was on high. His empty throne was 
waiting for the King to return and to receive 
His own. Praises that had been specially for 
Him had been hushed, and golden harps, during 
all the years of His absence, had stood silent 
and unstrung. His course on earth had been 
eagerly watched by angels who loved and 
honored Him and who would gladly have taken 
His place if their intervention could have 
availed. Their intense interest is shown by 



16-i THE MODEL LIFE. 

their appearance at times to comfort and 
strengthen Him in the terrible sufferings that 
He underwent, and in His own declaration that 
legions of them would gladly and quickly move 
to His rescue. They had seen the final act and 
they knew that He was to return on high. 
" For Christ, is entered into heaven itself, now to 
appear in the presence of God for us." " 1 go," 
He said to His saddened disciples, " to prepare a 
place for you, and I will come again and receive 
you unto myself that where I am there ye may 
be also." For us who love Him and before us He 
has returned to His home and His throne and 
His Father. " Now to appear in the presence 
of God for us." For us He careth there. He 
has a work for us there, as He had here. Not 
till the last redeemed man is brought safely 
within the heaven that contains the Lord will His 
thoughts turn away from the world on which He 
achieved salvation. As He was Redeemer, He 
is Intercessor. He presents the merits of His 
sacrifice as an argument and a reason why we 
should be saved. He stands for us, in His 
might and in His merits and in His mediation 
and nothing can turn away the Father's favor, 
nothing jan pluck us out of the Father's hand. 
If He had not risen from the dead and arisen to 
heaven, there would have been no assurance of 
our victory. Now the bright pathway on which 
He has gone up is open for us and we shall rise 
to be with Him where He is. We follow where 



CHRIST THE ZEALOtTS LEADER. 165 

He leads. We too shall appear in the presence 
of God, " whither the Forerunner, Jesus, is for 
us entered." He has opened the way, He has 
prepared the place: we walk in His footsteps 
and reach His royal home. 

Nor does even this end His leadership. Among 
the blessed scenes which the Scriptures give of 
the heavenly world, of the happiness and rest and 
royalty of the saints, is this: "For the Lamb, which 
is in the midst of the throne, shall feed them and 
shall lead them unto living fountains of waters." 
The Lamb shall lead them. Into the blessed 
scenes of that radiant and glorious world, into 
its overflowing sources of happiness, into its ex- 
alted and happy society, into its service which 
is pleasure and its pleasures which are pure, He 
shall lead them who led them through the world 
and led them to heaven. This Leadership is eter- 
nal. His dear footsteps will be forever forego- 
ing. Those who have followed Him on earth 
will follow Him in heaven. Those who have 
followed Him in service will follow Him in glory. 
Those who have followed Him bearing crosses 
will follow Him wearing crowns. The Lamb 
shall load them. With His infinite knowledge 
and love and power, with His control of all the 
universe, He shall lead them: calling them all by 
name, owning them as brethren, rejoicing to 
admit them to heirship with Himself. 

There have been great leaders of men. There 



10t) THE MODEL LIFE. 

have been those, from time to time, who have 
outranked their fellow-men and risen by the vol- 
untary consent of others to thrones. Their high 
intelligence, their fine capacity, their lordly man- 
ners, their noble presence, some extraordinary 
quality, dazzling genius or executive force or 
magnetic attraction, have invested them with 
command or preeminence and they have had the 
following of nations or wider communities, or 
stood at the head of the world. By their uncon- 
querable energy or steady ambition or trusted 
goodness the} 7 have led forward the race and 
left their names as a heritage or a talisman to the 
future. All through time other races and gener- 
ations are roused and led by the call of their 
great names. 

But there has been no Leader like the Lord. 
When Jesus goes before it is wise and safe to fol- 
low. He leads out of difficulty and danger, out 
of sin and sorrow ; He leads through the world's 
temptations and trials and conflicts ; He leads to 
heaven's glory and unceasing joy and He leads 
in heaven to experiences beyond our present 
thought and fancying, to scenes full of beauty, 
and to truth full of delight, and to a wealth of 
satisfaction which will only augment forever. 

Clearly and sweetly then upon our hearing 
falls the voice of Christ, Follow mc ! Where He 
goes before us let us joyfully follow. 



CHKTST THE ZEALOUS LEADER. 167 

' He goes before ! And so we may not look 
Backward at all, but onward evermore : 

Keeping in sight the blessed path He took, 

Patient to bear each cross He meekly bore : 

Trusting His wisdom in the darkest hour : 

O'ercoming every trial through His power !" 




THE COMMEMORATIVE FEAST. 
Typogravurc— Rubens. 



XIV. 

CHRIST AT THE COMMEMORATIVE FEAST. 



S^SHJlOUR hundred years ago, on the wall 
nffl of the refectory of an old monastery in 
-*^5iJ Milan, Leonardo da Vinci painted his 
great picture of the Last Supper, in which, al- 
though the work is sadly defaced and faded, 
may still be recognized the majesty and solem- 
nity of the Master, as He stated to the agitated 
group of His apostles the tragic fact of his 
betrayal. During the eventful years of His 
earthly ministry they had shared with him the 
trials and successes of His wonderful career: 
they had learned something of the greatness of 
His character and the exaltedness of His pur- 
pose and the depth of His mercy : and it was 
with intense feeling and melancholy apprehen- 
sion that they gathered at this final feast with 
Him. They had noticed the urgency with 
which He had approached it, the importance 
which He had attached to it, the careful prepar- 
ation which He had made for it. Christian art 
has only followed Christian thought when it 
wrought its most renowned works in commem- 

[169] 



170 the Model ufe. 

oration of an event which was to be perpetuated 
through the Christian ages. 

The very first words of our Lord, as He 
sat down with the Apostles, revealed the deptli 
of His emotion and the solemn meanings which 
the occasion held : " With desire I have desired 
to eat this passover with you before I suffer." 
A greater Passover was to be transacted. A 
greater Paschal Lamb was to be slain. A diviner 
work was to be wrought. The Hebrew passover 
was for one people : this was to be for the whole 
world. That celebrated the deliverance of a 
single nation : this the redemption of the race. 
That was observed wherever Israelites dwelt: 
this was to be observed by dwellers in all 
the lands of the earth. Let us trace, as we may, 
the reasons for this absorbing longing of Christ 
to partake of that passover with His Apostles. 
He had sat down with them at other passovers. 
For more than thirty years He had observed 
with His people this great commemorative 
festival. But the climax of the old economy was 
at hand. Its ancient types were to be fulfilled in 
Him. Its sacred rites were to be absorbed 
in the simpler ceremonial of the new dispensation. 
The blood that had been shed for a thousand 
years on the sacrificial altars was to be super- 
seded by the shed blood that once for all was to 
take away the sins of the world. Redemption, 
for which the race had waited, for which toiling 
minds had struggled in vain, was to be fully 



CHRIST AT THE COMMEMORATIVE FEAST. iYl 

accomplished by His own death upon the 
cross. 

The time of the passion was drawing near. 
Calvary rose before Him. A few days more, and 
the great atoning sacrifice would be made. He 
foresaw it all. The dreadful events crowded 
into His mind and filled His imagination with 
their phantoms. He knew that Gethsemane 
must be endured ; that Golgotha must be 
climbed ; that alone He must tread the wine- 
press of the wrath of God ; that on His unsup- 
ported shoulders must be borne the sins of the 
world. The thought of it all burned within Him 
like a devouring flame. The mental fever fired 
His whole nature. He would hasten to it. 
" How am I straitened," He said, " until it be 
accomplished ! With desire have 1 desired to 
eat this passover with you before I suffer /" Ah ! 
that suffering was in His mind. The bitter cup 
that He was to drink ! And he would drink it. 
He had come from heaven to do this work, and 
He would have it done. There is a mental pro- 
cess by which, in view of a supreme act, the 
whole mental power is centered upon that act, and 
everything contributes to its accomplishment. 
The love of Christ for sinners made Him long for 
the occasion of this passover, during which the 
critical and crucial event should occur by which 
their salvation should be achieved. " It is as if 
He longs for the death which is to give life to 



172 THE MODEL LIFE. 

the world." He would, if possible, shorten the 
delay, and speed the issue. 

Everything, so far in His life, had been work- 
ing toward this one fateful end. All His toil, all 
His teaching, all His sublime miracles, all His 
disinterested self-denial, were His personal 
contributions to the final bestowment of Himself 
as a willing sacrifice for man's deliverance. At 
this passover He intended to transform the 
ancient feast into a memorial Supper of His 
supreme love for sinners. He looked forward to 
it, therefore, with deepest interest. It would be 
the annulling of that which was typical and tran- 
sient and contracted, and its transference into a 
commemoration that would become permanent 
and world-wide and which would keep alive by 
its simple but suggestive symbols a spiritual 
redemption, in comparison with which the physi- 
cal preservation of the Hebrew people would be 
unworthy of mention. He rejoiced that the 
better economy was to supplant the earlier and 
preparatory one. 

Evidently, too, His mind went forward in 
thought of the consummation of the earthly 
memorial in the communion of the redeemed 
Church in heaven. " For I say unto you, I shall 
not eat it, until it be fulfilled in the Kingdom of 
God." He knew what the glory is of that estate 
into which they will be finally admitted, who 
share in His sufferings below, who are loyal to 
Him in their day of trial. At this passover, He 



CHRIST AT THE COMMEMORATIVE FEAST. 173 

would meet with His chosen friends, " His little 
children " as He tenderly called them, in condi- 
tions of anxiety and gloom : but with them He 
would look forward to the glory which the 
Father had given Him, and which He would 
give to them, to the tranquility of a place which 
would be prepared for them, and to the rest of 
a heavenly home. We may believe, also, that 
in the approach of the awful tragedy, He wanted 
the fellowship and sympathy of those who were 
His chosen friends. He said, With desire, I have 
desired to eat this passover with you before I 
suffer. So closely did He connect His suffering 
with this interview with them ! They had been 
with him in all His ministry, and He had made 
them confidants of His purposes and His acts. 
Although they did not fully comprehend Him, 
groping, as they did, their way slowly out of their 
Jewish prejudices, yet they had been in a meas- 
ure, true to Him. They had made mistakes. 
They had done things which grieved Him, 
which sometimes provoked Him. But they had 
been His best earthly friends. And He was a 
man, and nothing essentially human was foreign 
to Him. 

Therefore, when darkness was gathering 
around Him, when a trial, greatest of all trials 
that human nature ever bore, was instant, He 
wanted the succor of His friends. Their blessed 
sympathy would gird Him for His task. In 
their strength He would be strengthened for 



174 THE MODEL LIFE. 

endurance. We know how, afterward, when the 
consternation of His sufferings fell on Him, He 
took with Him into the depths of Gethsemane 
three of His most trusted disciples, and said to 
them, " Watch with me." We recall His word 
to them, " Rise and pray," when He was exhaus- 
ted by the agony from which His own prayer 
had not saved Him. We recall the silent horror 
which He felt when at His own table His be- 
trayer sat, with the mask of hypocrisy upon his 
demon face, his polluted soul consigned by him- 
self to Satan, when the professed friend who had 
eaten bread with Him, who had been with Him 
in work and in worship, foully lifted up his heel 
against Him. His whole nature prized true 
friendship, shrunk from the treachery of pro- 
fessed friendship. Christ was a man, and we 
can, even from our human stand-point, form a 
feeble estimate of His great recoil from one who 
had proved himself to be an ingrate and a traitor, 
and His longing for the cheering sympathy of 
those who truly loved Him. 

He did not wish to be alone. No one, indeed, 
could bear for Him the burden of human sins, 
nor carry for Him the load of human sorrows : 
but His friends, His dear children, those who 
owed everything most precious in their lives to 
Him, could stand by Him, could help Him by 
their loving looks and their sympathizing words 
and their souls saddened by His sorrow : they 
could watch with Him; they could rise and 



CHRIST AT THE COMMEMORATIVE FEAST. 175 

pray : they could go with Him to the judgment- 
hall : they could boldly say that they were the 
friends of the Nazarene : they could protest 
against His illegal arrest and trial: the)'- could 
smite His assailants with the sword: they could 
keep close to Him as He bore the cross and weep 
while He suffered on Calvary. Jesus would 
have prized their personal devotion. He had 
the feelings of a man. And who can say that the 
Godhead, enclothed in the human form, was 
not, in this, in sympathy with the manhood of 
Christ? 

He desired, also, to prepare them for the catas- 
trophe which was near: to, once more, do for 
them what he could, before the blow should fall 
with its stunning severity upon them. He knew 
how poorly they were fitted to bear a trial like that 
which already lowered on them. They had their 
ambitions, hopes and projects. Their eyes were 
filled with the glare of a kingdom which existed 
only in their imaginations. Even here, when 
the tender words: "With desire I have 
desired to eat this passover with you before I 
suffer," had hardly passed His lips, there arose 
a contention among them, which of them was 
accounted to be greatest. They were aspi- 
rants for the highest places under the King. 
They would sit, one on His right hand, and one 
on His left hand, at His royal court. Filled 
with such ideas how could they stand before 
the onset of that terrible trial which, would dash 



176 THE MODEL LIFE. 

their hopes and leave them without a Leader 
and without a solace ! So the gracious Master 
would lead them, while He could, to truer, higher 
thoughts : He would have them ready, if it 
might be, for the final disaster. 

First of all He gave them a lesson of humility. 
He washed their feet and wiped them with the 
towel wherewith He was girded : and He said 
" If I, the Lord and the Master, have washed 
your feet, ye also ought to wash one another's 
feet." There was no sound of the throne and 
the highest places in that. 

Then He told them, in symbols which spoke 
to their hearts, of His coming death, as He gave 
them the broken bread to represent His body 
which was given for them and the wine to repre- 
sent his blood which was poured out for them. 

He pointed them to the mansions which He 
was going to prepare for them. He promised 
to them the presence of the Comforter who 
would abide with them. He urged them to 
love one another, even as He had loved them. 

And, then, in prayer, beyond all other prayer 
that was ever offered, He commended them to 
God, and asked that they might behold that 
supernal glory which the Father had given Him, 
and might share in it. 

In these various ways He wrought on their 
too unresponsive minds to fit them for the 
painful crisis which was at hand. 

Furthermore, He desired to associate, with 



CHKIST AT THE COMMEMORATIVE FEAST. 177 

these memorial and farewell observances of re- 
ligion, the indulgence of His personal love for 
them. His mind went back to the time when He 
first became acquainted with them, when from 
their ordinary business He called them to follow 
Him ; when He called Peter and Andrew and 
James and John from their fishing boats and nets, 
telling them that He would make them fishers of 
men ; and Matthew from the place of toll ; and 
Nathaniel and the others from their various oc- 
cupations. " Ye did not choose me," He said, 
"but I chose you and appointed you." He 
dwelt upon all the time in which they had been 
together, upon their weary journeys through 
Galilee and Judea, upon instructions and mighty 
miracles and hard endurances and rejections, 
mingled with joys and blessed anticipations, upon 
the one supreme object of His life on earth and 
the training with which He had sought to make 
them ready for carrying on the work which He 
would begin. He thought, too, of the trials that 
would come to them after His departure; the 
bitter hatred of men, the wide rejection of the 
blessed gospel, their own disappointments. He 
spoke of these things to them, and said, " These 
things have I spoken unto you, that when their 
hour is come, ye may remember them, how that 
I told you." And that they might not grieve 
too much for His absence, He assured them that 
He should still remember them and that He 
would send the Comforter to abide with them. 



178 THE MODEL LIFE. 

He gave expression to His warm, undying, 
attachment to them. " No longer," He said, " do 
I call you servants : but I have called you 
friends." With tender sympathy He said, " Let 
not your heart be troubled." " My peace I give 
unto you." He desired that His joy might be 
in them and that their joy might be made full. 
He poured out His heart to them : " I have loved 
you : abide ye in my love." He told them that 
He would prove His greater love than all other 
love for them by laying down His life for them. 
And He assured them that whatever should 
come He would not leave them desolate, He 
would come unto them. "Because I live, ye 
shall live also." And He pointed them for- 
ward to eternal mansions, His home and their 
home, where He would receive them unto Him- 
self, that where He is there they should be also. 

So this farewell meeting, in the festal observ- 
ance of religion, was indeed a feast of love. By 
the institution of the sacramental Supper, He es- 
tablished a monumental memorial of His love 
and perpetuated His presence with them. As 
often as they observed it, they would do it in re- 
membrance of Him. 

They were indeed to separate : their long and 
blessed service together was to be interrupted: 
no more would they observe the holy rites of the 
people of God together: no more would He 
who had been their Leader go before them, 
would He who had been their Instructor speak 



CHRIST AT THE COMMEMORATIVE FEAST. 179 

to them, would He who had been their Friend 
dwell with them. He was about to go to His 
Father and to His throne and to His waiting 
Home : they were about to go into the hostile 
world, heralds of his kingdom of grace. 

But they would still be bound together by 
mutual love: He on the throne caring for them : 
they in the conflict holding His name high and 
irresistible. 

At this farewell feast He would draw them in- 
to close and indissoluble communion with Him- 
self and with one another: a communion which 
no changes could shatter, nor time, nor eternity 
dissolve. Painful truly the separation would be. 
Were they not His "little children?" Was it 
not His own voice which had called them to His 
service? Had they not been in His company, 
under His guidance and instruction, sharers with 
Him in the beginnings of the gospel, in the plant- 
ing of the holy church ? 

But He would still be with them. His exam- 
ple would never die. His words would sound 
on with the tone and thrill of other time. His 
spirit would animate them, and they would 
meet again. A few years of toil and trial, and 
then the world of eternal calm and joy, where 
they shall see His face and His name shall be on 
their foreheads ! 

For Himself, for them, for the world, with de- 
sire did He desire to eat that Passover with them 
before He suffered. 



XV. 

CHRIST THE BOSOM FRIEND. 

jl* 1 <**'*! OT without some significance of meaning 
faiWvMl totne readers of the gospels, is this fact, 
Wgfral that one of the disciples leaned on the 
breast of the Lord at supper, several times 
spoken of in the sacred narrative. The writer is 
not one of those who would take pride in stating 
it, as though a special privilege or honor were 
granted to himself in being allowed such intim- 
acy with the Lord : like those boasters of inter- 
views with princes and crowned heads and 
persons of distinction and rank who plume them- 
selves on the event. He is a man of marked 
modesty who keeps out of sight his own name 
in the account, so that we know who it was only 
by inference, by setting one fact over against 
another. It is not told of a weak man, of an 
effeminate disciple, who would choose to lie off 
in indolent repose or dreamy sentimentality, 
breathing his life luxuriously away, rather than 
to encounter the tasks of manly service. It is 
told of a bold, strong Apostle, of a man of 
fiery energy and dauntless purpose, and nervous 
eloquence, of a man who was foremost to face the 

[181I 



182 THE MODEL LIFE. 

enemies of his Master and of himself. The artists 
represent him as most like the Lord of any of 
the Apostles, as very likely he was, being His 
own cousin. He was a man of polished grace of 
manner, with the courage of a soldier. When 
any thing new or great was to be undertaken, he 
was summoned to undertake it. He was modest 
and loving, as such men are apt to be. But 
under his surcoat beat a heart of fire; and his 
gentle hand could strike a blow of sturdiness ; 
and his polished speech had ringing in it an 
undertone of thunder. 

He and his brother James were surnamed by 
Christ Himself, " Boanerges, which is, The sons 
of thunder." This designation had a meaning in 
it, as had that also which Christ gave to Simon 
whom He surnamed Peter. For Peter was to be 
the Rock of the Church, as John was to be its 
bold and eloquent advocate. He was often 
associated with Peter in the Master's life, in the 
last scenes of it, and afterward. He was on the 
Mount of Transfiguration and in the Garden of 
Gethsemane. At the trial of Christ he walked 
boldly into the palace of the high-priest, by 
whom he was well known; and probably 
remained in sight of Christ when they took Him 
into Pilate's judgment-hall ; and he kept near 
Him on the way to Calvary and stood by His 
cross in His more than mortal agony, where 
indeed he was powerless to aid his beloved Mas- 
ter, but where he could bow in tears and prayer 



CHRIST THE BOSOM FRIEND. 183 

for Him, where he could testify his undying 
devotion to Him and where Christ could see him 
and speak to him, as He did, from the cross itself 
in tenderest appreciation of his precious love. 

He was sent with Peter to prepare the last 
passover in a city clamorous for the blood of 
his Master. He outran Peter to the sepulchre 
of the buried Christ ; yet reverently paused at 
its sacred entrance. He was a leader of the 
little company of Christians, after the Lord 
ascended, and boldly appeared in the Jewish 
temple as a preacher through Jesus of the resur- 
rection from the dead. So that the historian of 
their acts writes: " Now when they saw the 
boldness of Peter and John * * they took 
knowledge of them that the}' had been with 
Jesus." He was sent to Samaria as one of the 
first missionaries of the Church. Paul, in his 
letter to the Galatians, speaks of him as a pillar 
of the Church. In his old age, though his let- 
ters are full of love, he commends " faith, which 
is the victory that overcometh the world." To 
him it was given to receive the Revelation of 
Jesus Christ concerning the future of His Church 
on earth and to have the vision of the new heav- 
en and the new earth ; the sublime Apocalypse 
whose hidden meanings are yet to be evolved in a 
history of mingled terror and triumph ! 

Such was the man " which also leaned on His 
breast at supper." This was the last supper, 
the first Lord's supper, which we still observe, 



18-4 THK MODKL LIFE. 

since Christ then enjoined it upon all who 
love Him: "This do in remembrance of 
Me." It is written: "Now there was leaning 
on Jesus' bosom one of His disciples, whom 
Jesus loved." And again ; " He then lying- on 
Jesus' breast saith unto Him, Lord :" I have said 
the singular repetition of this fact has in it some 
significance of meaning to all who read it. 

Perhaps there is a divine side to it to which 
we may give heed. It was His breast, the 
bosom of the Lord, on which the brave, loving, 
confiding disciple leaned. It is the strong 
bosom on which the weak and throbbing head 
reclines. They are moving into perils together, 
and the head rests on one to whom, in his 
feebleness and uncertainty, the disciple can 
confidently say, Lord ! So God places Himself 
for us. It is not on a throne to whose dazzling 
glory we dare not draw nigh, remote and lifted 
up. It is not in some brilliant place of Leader- 
ship to which it would be in vain to attempt, to 
urge one's way, occupied by those in honor and 
in favor. But it is at the table, at the festival 
common to the household, in the posture com- 
mon at the daily meal, at the supper in the upper 
room where the Lord and His disciples are 
alone together, that we have this representation 
of the confiding familiarity which Christ allows 
on the part of that disciple whom He loves. 
It is not by some apparent act of condescension, 
it is not by laying aside something peculiar and 



CHRIST THE TOSOM FRIEND. 185 

magnificent that belongs to Him, that He pre- 
pares the way for the disciple to lean on His 
breast, but it is as a matter of course, as a 
natural and unconstrained and every-day thing, 
even as one friend would conduct toward 
another. This is the way God reveals Himself 
to us. For Christ, in all His life, was the revela- 
tion of God to our human comprehension. We 
had failed to know God. His works had not 
taught us of Him. His word had but partially 
done it. His Providence had left us in the 
dark. So Christ came, to make that clear 
which the ages had left obscure, to bring down 
the divine life into the grasp of our thought and 
into the reach of our affection, to make God 
known to us. 

And here is one manifestation of Him holding 
on His bosom at supper one of His disciples ! 
I do not characterize this. It seems to me that 
any language about it would but lessen the 
effect, would take away from its striking and 
tender and blessed significance. It stands out 
like a picture of some old great master, speaking 
for itself, unable to be represented so well as 
is represents itself. But we are to take it in 
its fullest, greatest meaning, just as it is, just 
as it is set before us in three-fold phrase, as 
Christ, with the disciple leaning on His breast at 
supper, as Christ, so, as in all other ways of His 
life, giving us the representation of God ! And 
ii this gives us other views of God from those 



186 THE MODEL LIFE. 

which we naturally have, if it lessens dread and 
remoteness and awfulness, may it not have the 
proper influence upon us? May it not harmon- 
ize with the meaning which is involved in the 
expression, "Our Father?" May it not make 
God more approachable by us, more dear to us ? 
You know how your views have changed of 
some one whom you have regarded with rever- 
ence and awe, as you have met him in the confi- 
dence of friendship and in the familiarity of 
acquaintance! Come to His table, where the 
Lord, among us, calling us not servants but 
friends, permits the disciple to lean on His breast 
at supper. As you think of it, it will not reduce 
the dignity of Godhead, it will not drawdown to 
depreciate divine attributes ; rather, it will reveal 
love, it will show you infinite kindness making a 
place for the weary, infinite strength holding the 
weak, infinite greatness taking upon itself appro- 
priate care for those who are in need ! 

We are sure that there is a human side to it 
which is adapted to us. If Christ will permit 
the disciple to come so close to Him, surely the 
disciple will not lose the privilege. If that posi- 
tion is one of affectionateness, then should the 
disciple take it. It is but a response to the love 
that has redeemed him. That love was so great 
that it involved great sacrifice, left a great throne 
vacant for thirty-three long years, put abjectest 
humiliation upon one who had been used for 
countless ages to loftiest glories, reduced a 



CHRIST THE BOSOM FRIEND. 187 

divine Creator to the contempt of His creatures 
and consigned Him to the ignominy and the 
suffering of the cross. No love on our part can 
match it, can be the sufficient response to it. 
All that we can render is called for. His voice 
speaks to each of us, and there is pleading and 
claim in it, " Lovest thou me ?" If He will take 
us to His bosom, will allow us that place of 
affection, will permit us to come so near Him, 
where we can whisper to Him our loving grati- 
tude, where we can call Him by the Name 
that He loves the best, all other names above, 
where we can feel our sins to the utmost and our 
redemption to the utmost also, surely we shall 
be there ! We know how wonderful it seems to 
us when one, whom we had indeed thought of 
as a friend, but who in culture and knowledge 
and all graces and all habitudes of life had 
always seemed far above us, too far for us to 
come ever very near together, reveals a pure, 
strong affectionatencss for us and takes us lo his 
bosom and enfolds us with clasping arms! Our 
whole nature flows out to him in a new tide of 
love, and we become friends as we never were 
before. So Christ takes us to Himself, and we 
feel that we are one with him as we have never 
been before. 

It was at the supper that the disciple leaned 
on His breast. If ever, at the supper, we come 
closest to Him, and lay our head on His bosom. 
Here we see as we do not elsewhere what He is 



188 THE MODEL LIFE. 

to us and what He has done for us. Those 
symbols set Him clearly before us in His aton- 
ing offering. We may read of it, we may hear 
of it, but at the supper we see it : the Body 
broken, wounded, suffering; the Blood flowing, 
shed, for us. 

These sensuous objects make the fact more real 
to us. Then we love much because we know 
that much has been done for us. Our whole 
hearts go out to Him whose blood, whose life, 
went out for us. It is easy, natural, to lay our 
head in deepest gratitude and love upon the very 
bosom of One who has done this, all for us. The 
love is mutual. We love Him because He first 
loved us. " Lean hard if you love me," said a 
Persian convert to her accomplished and devoted 
teacher, one of our own best missionaries, as she 
saw that, worn and tired, she leaned a little upon 
her for support as they sat together with many 
others in their study of the Word. " Lean hard 
if you love me ," and the grateful strength of the 
Persian woman supported the weary body of 
her teacher. He who has all strength and who 
says to the weakest of His followers " My 
strength shall be made perfect in thy weakness," 
bids us lean hard upon His bosom. If we are 
weak, if we are anxious, if we are troubled, if we 
are in any doubt or sorrow we can find support 
and comfort there. We must not keep aloof. 
We must go to the body that was broken : to the 
bosom out of whose side flowed the blood. Noth- 



CHRIST THE BOSOM FRIEND. 180 

ing must separate us from the loving and beloved 
Christ. We must come to Him there, at the 
supper, if we have not lived near to Him at 
other times. But it must be then in penitence 
as well as in love : tears of sorrow must flow 
with our tears of gratitude. Better to have 
lived near Him elsewhere also, that it may be easy 
for us to lean on His breast at supper. These 
intimacies of affection should be the result of 
long-time love, of daily, continuous, habitual 
devotion. John leaned on His breast at supper 
because he had loved Him beforehand. He had 
toiled for Him among the people. He had stood 
with Him on the Mount of Glory. He had faced 
His foes with unflinching courage. He was 
ready to go with Him before Jewish priest or 
Roman governor, to stand by the very foot of 
His cross as one willing to die with Him or for 
Him. 

The place of such a follower was on the Savi- 
our's bosom. The strong arm of the Saviour 
would fold and hold him there. True faithful 
service runs into true earnest love. Lay not 
down your unworthy head on that sacred breast, 
where lay the head of one like John, unless like 
John you have been faithful beforehand, unless 
you come weary in the Master's service, unless 
you come from toil and testimony and revelation 
of glory and bold advocacy of your Saviour. 
Go to II is feet and not to His bosom, if your life 
has had no love in it for Him. Go to His feet 



190 THE MODEL LIFE. 

rind not to His bosom, if your feet have gone on 
all ways of indulgence and sin and vanity, if your 
bosom has known no devotion, no loyalty, no 
profound affection. But let not timidity, self- 
distrust, humbleness, keep you away. If you 
love you can lean. One without strength can 
lean. He is strong, He is all-sufficient, He is 
all- worthy on whose breast you can cast your- 
self. He is the Saviour, the all-mighty Saviour 
of the poor and the weak and the lost, who yet 
repent and love and serve. 

On His bosom one may come to knowledge 
beyond what he could gain elsewhere. There 
John was to ask that which the disciples did not 
know, and to learn it from Christ. " The secret 
of the Lord is with them that fear Him." That 
is the place where may be communicated the 
divine secrets. Says one : " There is a secret in 
the days of God, with His own children, which 
sweetens all He does." In the divine intimacy 
He may make Himself known to the confiding 
believer, so that he may say as John said, " We 
know that the Son of God is come, and hath 
given us an understanding, that we may know 
Him that is true ; and we are in Him that is 
true, even in His Son jesus Christ. This is the 
true God and eternal life." John did not doubt. 
He knew. The love that he had for Christ was 
a living and controlling love. His letters to his 
beloved children in Christ glow with the assur- 
ance of his union to the Lord. The visions that 



CHRIST THE BOSOM FRIEND. 191 

he had on Patmos, when to him the heavens 
were opened and the glories of the Lamb 
amidst His Father's throne were revealed, were 
no more satisfying- and assuring than the 
blessed experiences when he leaned on the 
bosom of his Lord and his Friend at supper. 
The city, which he discerned and described, of 
such imperial magnificence and glory, was no 
more certain unto him when he saw his own 
name inscribed on one of its garnished founda- 
tions, than when he received the quiet answer 
from the lips of the Lord in reply to the question 
which he asked as he lay on Jesus' breast. That 
heaven was already begun in his soul. He 
who is the Light and the glory of it was 
already revealed to His loving disciple. The 
Apocalypse within him was more than the 
Apocalypse without and above him. He lived 
in the peace and joy and love of the inhabitants 
of the blessed land. He could have no more there 
that he needed, no more that could satisfy him, 
than he had when in the blessedness of such a 
friendship he leaned or the bosom of Christ at 
supper. 

" Then on Thy grandeur I will lay me down, 
Already life is heaven to me ; 
No cradled child more softly lies than I ; 
Come soon, Eternity !" 



XVI. 

CHRIST THE ENLIGHTENER OF MEN. 



HRIST, and the religion of Christ, furnish 
sufficient light for every man. Undoubt- 
edly there are mysterious things, unsolv- 
able problems, which will remain such so long as 
we are in the present environment. These do 
not much concern us: although many men very 
much concern themselves with them. They seem 
to like to give time and thought and care to the 
unessentials, to the things which are unknowable 
or unexplainable, rather than to attend to those 
which are both plain and practical, and personal 
as well. They like to take hold of " weapons 
whose handles are sharper than their blades." 
They like to argue on what is doubtful, rather 
than to experience what is certain. They prefer 
lo doubt the being of any God rather than to 
love the true God. They prefer to dwell where 
they cannot see, rather than to walk in the clear 
light. Nevertheless, the light has come into the 
world, and it lighteth every man! 

Christianity sets a standard for true life. This 
is a vita! thing for every man. How shall I live ? 
is the first question which confronts each soul. 

[i93J 



194 THE MODEL LIFE. 

It is possible to utterly waste this life. It is pos- 
sible to make a terrible curse of it. It is an un- 
certain possession. It is a hard and doubtiul 
battle which we wage for it. Men are gravely 
asking, Is life worth living ? That depends 
upon the use to which we put it : is solemnly 
answered by our misuse of it. We can make it 
worth living. We can make it a most unfortu- 
nate possession. Three centuries ago a strong 
thinker wrote : " I may be too old to live, I can 
never be too young to die : I will therefore live 
every hour, as if I were to die the next." Chris- 
tianity teaches us to seek first the kingdom of 
love and the righteousness that belongs to it : that 
so all other things may be provided for. It holds 
that it is a practical heresy for any one to delay 
repentance and faith in Christ, with all the 
uncertainties and the unavoidabilities that hang 
over every life. It teaches that the foundation is 
of prime importance, and that he who goes on to 
erect his structure upon treacherous sand, is 
liable to most serious disaster. It antagonizes 
the make-shifts and perversions in which so many 
men indulge and sets up a true standard for them 
to go by. It puts first things first; and makes 
great things great : it never dwarfs eternity in the 
presence of time, nor shuts the omnipresent God 
out of any portion of His universe. 

Would you live up to the standard? Would 
you improve and rightly use the light? Then 
abandon, first of all, your indifference to your 



CHKIST THE ENLIGHTENER OF MEN. 195 

real duty. Come into harmony with the 
representations of the inspired word. If you 
are a little child, know that this religion is for 
you, that the blessed Saviour is your Saviour 
and that He has a fondness for children and 
seeks their young love, their first and best love, 
that He desires to pre-empt their hearts and to 
possess their whole lives. 

You cannot make a mistake in giving your 
whole lives to Him, in making the dew of your 
youth radiant with His love, in lighting up the 
morning of your days with the light that He 
brings from heaven. The religion of Christ is 
the religion of children. It is meant for them. 
It is going to be, more and more, in all the 
lands, their religion. The unfounded prejudices 
which have held them back, which have made 
many a child's pillow wet with secret tears, are 
to give way, and the children are to be the 
recruits of the conquering Lord, and as the 
bright heavens are full of boys and girls who 
enjoy Christ so the redeemed world is to be 
made full of them. All things indicate it. 

Let the children come to Christ. The artists 
have loved to put on canvas the pictorial repre- 
sentation of that most significant saying of the 
Lord, " Suffer the little children, and forbid them 
not, to come unto me ; for to such beiongeth the 
kingdom of heaven." In the great galleries you 
see llis benignant face as He welcomes with out- 
stretched arms the little ones who confide in Him. 



196 THE VODSL LIFB. 

And we must love to encourage in practice 
what others produce in art. 

If you have passed out of childhood and the 
ambitions of youth are stirring- within you, if 
you are full of worldly hopes and are planning 
for worldly success, you have here a guide of 
authority and of wisdom which you will do well 
to heed. Many a young man and young woman 
feel concerned as to the calling which they shall 
follow in the world. It is a serious thing to 
decide, when before each are open so many paths. 
The business of the world is multiform. The 
professions of life have their separate invitations. 
What will you choose to do? To what calling 
will you devote your one life? Many make a 
mistake. It is said that a good farmer was 
spoiled by going into the pulpit ; or a certain 
poor blacksmith would have made a first-rate 
lawyer ; or that this man and that man have mis- 
taken their calling. This is very likely to be the 
case. Persons decide these matters in their 
immaturity, and repent with their experience. 

But there is one decision, which each one set- 
ting out in independent life may make, which 
involves no mistake, which will excite no after 
regret: it is the decision to take Christ as the 
Master, to devote the life to Him. It will not 
then be of very great comparative importance 
what the particular worldly profession or calling 
may be. The young man or the young woman 
who starts forth as a Christian, has something 



CHRIST THE ENLIGHTENER OF MEN. 197 

worthy to live for in any vocation. Any voca- 
tion, which is fit for a Christian, has the Lord's 
call in it. It has good work in it. It has 
success in it. For the final reckoning, with 
which every life will be terminated, requires 
an accounting, not of the property which 
one has amassed, not of the fortune which 
figures in the inventory of the probate court, 
not of the pleasures which one has enjoyed, the 
travel which has enlarged the knowledge of the 
world, the reading which has furnished growth 
for the mind : but of the growth of the soul in 
the knowledge of Christ, the good work which 
has been done to set forward the kingdom of the 
Lord among men, the help which has been given 
to the church, the effort which has been made 
to save other men. A man may come to the 
end of life poor in worldly property, but rich 
in faith and in eternal possessions. He may 
have had a hard time as things go in this world, 
but be fitted to wear a very bright crown in 
heaven and to be at the head of ten cities in the 
coming Kingdom. Some one has well said, 
" Happiness may fly away, pleasure pall or cease 
to be obtainable, health decay, friends fail or 
prove unkind, but the power to serve God never 
fails, the love of Him is never rejected." No 
life can be vain that has good Christian service 
in it. No life is lost that holds the gain of 
repentance and faith and love to Christ. He has 
not. made a mistake who has consecrated him- 
self to the Lord at the opening of his manhood. 



198 THE MODEL LIEE. 

Christianity furnishes principle for the right 
governing of conduct. We all need a rule of 
life, a law by which our course shall be directed. 
We are brought into positions where two ways 
are open to us. Two parties make their appeal 
for our suffrages. Two doctrines are urged 
upon our acceptance. Questions of casuistry 
arise on which opposing arguments are made. 

How shall one decide ? Which way shall one 
turn? On which side shall he vote? Which 
doctrine shall he put into his creed ? What 
ethics shall he follow ? 

Christ gives him the governing principle. 
We have in the gospel a golden rule. One 
overmastering obligation holds us. If we give 
ourselves to God, to be His and to serve Him, 
we must do that which is for His glory, we 
must do for others what we would have them 
do for us, we must act in ever)- human relation 
as those who are the servants of Christ. Selfish- 
ness goes down before this principle. World- 
liness expires in its presence. 

Before everything else the new man is a Chris- 
tian. He cannot violate his heavenly vows. He 
cannot, desert the standard of his Saviour. He 
must obey the Lord, whomsoever he may dis- 
obey. No friends can stand between him and 
Christ. Father and mother, brother and sister, 
must be hated so that Christ shall be loved. 

Christianity affords comfort in sorrow. A 
factor in all life is the grief that is mingled in it. 



CHRIST THE ENLIGHTENER OF MEN". 199 

We cannot escape it. To some souls it is rare ; 
but when it comes to them it is great. For some 
families it is long adjourned ; but then it breaks 
on them as the swift and heavy surges beat 
against the shore. Friends may stand together ; 
but the time will come when they will fall as 
trees fall before the axe of the pioneer. Two may 
walk together on many and long paths ; but sud- 
denly the footsteps of one will cease, and the 
survivor will go thenceforth alone. Tenderest 
relations are sundered. Beautiful lives, made 
for each other, are broken apart. 

God's discipline of affliction is on the sinning 
race. And not till the heavens shall have 
received all the redeemed will it be said that 
even for them there is no more sorrow. 

Christ does not remove it : but He gives com- 
fort in it. Christ does not remove it : but He 
gives a compensation for it. Christ does not 
remove it: but He blesses the soul in bearing it, 
so that, though it be grievous, it works for it 
an eternal weight of glory. Some of the 
sweetest human lives are those that have borne 
the hardest griefs, as there are plants that shed 
their sweetest perfumes when they are pressed 
and beaten most rudely. The most graceful 
plants in the heavenly gardens are those on 
which the storms swept most mercilessly here. 
All the while before every Christian are the 
footsteps of his Lord, who trod the wine-press 
of sorrow alone, who was a man of sorrows and 



200 THE MODEL LIFE. 

acquainted with grief, who bore our griefs and 
carried our sorrows, who passed through every 
door that is to open for our feet, who carried all 
the burdens that are to be laid on us, and who will 
make His grace to be sufficient for us. if 
religion had no more than this to do for us, it 
should command our acceptance. If Christ had 
no greater work than this to do for us, He 
should have our immediate homage and our 
grateful service. But He has another work. 

Christianity yields the pardon for sin. The 
darkest fact of the world is sin. It is a universal 
fact. We have nothing to do with its origin, 
with the reasons for its permission, with any of 
the hard questions which its existence starts. 
We have only to do with it and with deliverance 
from it. It is an existing fact. We are person- 
ally guilty of it. Then, only one great question 
confronts and occupies us: Can we be delivered 
from it? That question the Gospel answers, 
answers plainly and fully, answers for every 
man, answers everywhere : answers so that every 
one can know its meaning, so that every one can 
know that he is included : answers without any 
mistake, without any reservation, with a fullness 
that reaches all sinners, and a particularity that 
touches each sinner. It tells us that Christ has 
died for sinners, that He has made such a com- 
plete satisfaction for their sins before the throne 
and law of God that on their repentance and 
trust in Him they can be pardoned, utterly and 



CHRIST THE ENLIGHTENER OF MEN. 201 

forever, and can be treated as though they had 
never sinned. This is the burden of the Gospel. 
This is the supreme meaning of the Cross. This 
is Christ. Forgiveness of sin, through His death, 
on repentance and faith. It is the wonder of the 
universe. It is the one thing that the angels 
desire to look into. It should be the first thing 
with each of us. 

Moreover, Christianity holds the hope of 
eternal life. It has the promise of the life that now 
is, and of that which is to come. Anything less 
than this would be futile, anything more would 
be superfluous. We are on the sea ! Winds 
and strong currents and the forces of giant 
machinery are bearing us on. To what? The 
cry from the look-out will soon be heard. To 
what land will he point us ? What fair shores 
are those which lift their fronded palms before 
us, from which the soft breezes bear the odors of 
opulent gardens and the harmonies of exultant 
choirs, and from which a glory streams, not of 
the sun nor of the moon, but which is the glory 
of God ? What serene heights are those on 
which are dimly seen the outlines of palaces, 
whose golden domes are lifted into the sky, and 
that flash with the brilliance of pearls and gems? 
What city is that whose walls rise on our sight, 
whose foundations are of all manner of precious 
stones, and within which are processions of many 
nations carrying their tribute to its throne? 

There no sin is found. There no sorrow is 



202 THE MODEL LIFE. 

known. There death shall be no more. And 
there shall be night no more. Life forever, life 
in uninterrupted joy, life with the holy ones, life 
in Christ with God ! 

That Christ gives. That is the sure inheritance 
of all those who love and serve Him here. 

On these great matters, most vital to all of us, 
the clear light shines from the gospel of Christ. 
We may know all that we need to know, and 
know it absolutely. 

George McDonald, in Paul Fabre, says : 
" To many souls hell itself seems a less frightful 
alternative than the agony of resolve, of turning, 
of being born again." They shrink from the 
undertaking to become Christians as though it 
were a crucifixion. They postpone the good 
resolution as though it were the contraction of a 
disease. They act as though the best thing they 
could do were the worst thing the)' could do. It 
is told of a man that as he sprang ashore from a 
boat, his foot was caught in one of the links of an 
iron chain which was imbedded in the sand of 
the beach. He was unconcerned until the tide 
began to rise ! The gray waters murmured in 
circles around the place where he sat. They 
rose above his ankles, and the moan of the ocean 
grew louder as the waves rose higher. It 
sounded like his requiem ! Then his cry for help 
was desperate. He was ready for any sacrifice, 
to lose the fettered limb, that he might save his 
life. 



CHRIST THE ENLIGHTENER OP MEN. 203 

Before the hour of desperation comes, before 
the tide of eternity pours in upon you, be aroused 
by the hope of immortal life, to gain deliverance 
through the one only Saviour. 



XVII. 

CHRIST MANIFEST TO ALL. 

STRANGE footstep on Gentile terri- 
tory ! For the first time in His crowded 
ministry the Lord had left the sacred 
soil of Israel. Once He would go out beyond 
its borders, as in significant symbol of the out- 
reaching and world-embracing compass of His 
mission. Once He would leave a foot-print of 
His own pointing toward the realms of the Gen- 
tiles, out into the darkness and foulness and 
misery of the wide-spreading nations, into which 
His followers might plant their own and by the 
sight of which they might learn the lesson of 
their work and see the sign of the way they 
should afterward take. That foot-mark of the 
Redeemer pointing outward indicated the track 
of the Gospel. Though He was sent but unto 
the lost sheep of the House of Israel, His Gos- 
pel was for all the lost of every nationality. 
Though for reasons which lay undisclosed in the 
divine prudence His own work was to be among 
the people of His earthly parentage, yet His 
living and His dying were for all the world. He 
was the Brother of every man nnd the Saviour 

[205] 



206 THE MODEL LIFE. 

of every man. Gladly would He have passed 
over the boundaries of the Hebrew possession 
and set His foot on every shore. Gladly would 
He have spoken to the men of every speech in 
their own tongue, and taken hold with His lov- 
ing- and strong hand of all the down-cast and 
crushed. That He went out once was a revela- 
tion of His heart, a sign to His successors. That 
foot-print was long ago washed out by the 
storms that swept down from Lebanon : but the 
lesson of it endures like Lebanon itself! In the 
valleys folded by its wild ranges and under the 
shadow of its snowy cliffs His ministers are tell- 
ing to-day to the dwellers there the story of His 
love and death. Farther than the flags of the 
Tyrian vessels ever flew His disciples have 
carried His Gospel. 

He went at this time into the borders of Tyre 
and Sidon to escape, on the one hand, the Jews 
who were busily plotting His overthrow and, 
on the other hand, Herod, whose aroused con- 
science was pricking him to some deed of des- 
peration. There, He entered into a house, and 
would have no man know it. Over in the pagan 
territory, He might hope to find the relief and 
repose and recuperation which He -mid not 
find in Galilee, where His miracles had aroused 
intensest interest and His words had awakened 
popular enthusiasm. It was a place of rest and 
retirement. The white rocks of Lebanon, in 
their substantial majesty and high repose, shed 



CHRIST MANIFEST TO ALL. 207 

down their graciousness and strength into His 
weary and troubled spirit. The cool air from 
the unmelted snows bathed His heated temples 
and the perfume of the fragrant cedars cheered 
Him as a cordial. Around that dwelling the 
mountain birds were singing their wild songs 
and over it the shadow and the sunshine chased 
each other in still playfulness. The silence was 
sweet. There time kept perpetual Sabbath. 
The toil and turbulence of the towns were far 
away. There was stillness like that of the fall- 
ing of dew. And there was sweetness like the 
scented breath of morning. Surely there the 
Lord might rest. His tired soul and His hunted 
body might lie down together untroubled. He 
would have no man know that He was there. 
For a while, till He could recover Himself, He 
would remain still and solitary. Noon should 
be as midnight. Not a bird of the air nor a 
wanton wind should tell of the Lord. Men, as 
they passed by, bold mountaineers from the 
chase, husbandmen of the plains with their hands 
full of seeds for planting, should not know that 
there a King was stepping and that more than a 
palace stood by that unguarded roadside. He 
would be unknown, wholly unrecognized. 

But He could not be hid! As the fragrance 
of spices fills the atmosphere and the aroma of 
roses reveals lhcir presence, as the loadstone 
attracts metallic iron and the pole directs and 
holds the trembling needle, as the majesty of 



208 THE MODEL LIFE. 

men stands forth through all disguises and 
royalty is disclosed in look and tone and posture, 
so Christ could not be hid. Divinity asserts 
itself. Where Christ was there He was known 
to be. The closed house could not contain Him. 
The guardianship of watchful and faithful 
disciples could not conceal Him. The deep 
woods and the bold mountain ranges around 
could not shut Him in. Lebanon could not 
imprison its God. The coasts of Tyre and 
Sidon were not remote enough to leave His 
great name and fame behind. He had traveled 
far, farther from Bethlehem, the spot of His 
birth and from Jerusalem, the capital and joy 
of His people, than ever before, but not far 
enough yet to be hidden. No silence was deep 
enough to exclude all voice of Him. No seclu- 
sion was profound enough to enclose all 
knowledge of Him. He could not be hidden. 
The Scripture does not say, He was not hid. 
It is a bolder, stronger statement : He could 
not be hid. He was self-revealing. He was 
wanted. Within those pagan coasts were 
hearts that were aching for Him. Hungry and 
thirsty, there was but One who could feed them 
and give them living water. The heathen 
world was waiting for His coming. And when 
once His divine footsteps invaded its dark and 
bloody soil He was welcomed as a Deliverer. 
He came unto I lis own and His own received 
Him not. He went unto the Outcasts and the 



CHRIST MANIFEST TO ALL. 209 

pagans and He was hailed as Lord. He was 
not sent but unto the lost sheep of the House of 
Israel. But other sheep He had which were 
not of that fold, on the strange, dark mountains. 
Many want Christ who have never seen Him 
nor read His gospel. \\\ all heathen lands there 
are burdened and longing souls who only wait 
for the announcement of the Saviour. This 
they say, is what we have longed to hear : now 
there is life for us. 

He could not be hid. For a certain woman, 
whose young daughter had an unclean spirit, 
heard of Him, and came and fell at His feet. A 
year before this, in His ministry near Caper- 
naum, a great multitude of people out of all 
Judea and Jerusalem, and from the sea-coast of 
Tyre and Sidon, had come to hear Him and to 
be healed of their diseases. They had carried 
back to their homes the account of the wonder- 
ful Teacher and Healer. And this poor woman, 
for she was a Syrophccnician by nation, had heard 
how virtue went out of Him and healed them all 
of whatsoever disease they had. And perhaps 
some ol His precious words had also been carried 
t'» her which she had treasured in her heart for 
months. She was a heathen. She belonged to 
an accursed stock, to the doomed Canaanites, 
some of whom had been somehow .spared. But 
she had heard "l Christ, and that had given hope 
I', her life and light to her darkness and patience 
to bear all her trembles. And now this divine 



210 THE MODEL LIFE. 

One had come to her country and was near to 
her. Hozv she knew this we are not told. It is 
written that Christ would have no man know 
that He was there. Also that He could not be 
hid. For a certain woman heard of Him and 
came and fell at His feet. Did her terrible want 
direct her to Christ, as the needle sways and 
trembles till it points to the pole? Did her 
bursting heart feel its way to the Saviour, when 
her eyes had not yet seen Him and no voice had 
told her of His coming? Or had some faintest 
whisper crept along the foot of Lebanon that a 
stranger had entered quietly into a house, and 
did her waiting, longing soul interpret and pro- 
phesy that it was He ? She lost no time : she 
was at His feet and her cry was, " Have mercy 
on me, O Lord." " And she besought Him that 
He would cast forth the devil out of her 
daughter." Her daughter's case was her own 
case. The mother's heart enfolded the child. 
And it was one cry, Have mercy on me, Have 
mercy on my daughter. So said the father of the 
lunatic son, " Have compassion on ?^and help us." 
The father and his boy stood and fell together. 
Compassion on one was compassion on both. 
So cry all true hearts of fathers and of mothers. 
There is no joy to them while their children are 
in sorrow : no light for their feet while the feet 
of sons and daughters walk in darkness ; no 
heaven for them to look up to, if the faces of the 
others are turned to hell. 



C&RIST MANIFEST TO ALL. 211 

How closely the words stand together, " O 
Lord, have mercy on me, my daughter is griev- 
ously vexed with a devil." They suffered to- 
gether : and mercy for one would be mercy for 
both. And to-day as every day, they are many, 
like this Syrophcenician, who are falling before 
the Saviour with burdens for others which are 
also their own. The woes of one heart are the 
woes of two. By the side of the suffering sinner 
walks the suffering saint. Heart to heart the 
parent accompanies the child. His life is spoiled 
while the life of the other is spoiled. The cry 
for the boy's life is the cry for his own life. The 
two are wound up in affection together. Blood 
cements them and love which is stronger than 
life. Have mercy on me is the cry of agony as 
parents bring their sons and daughters in prayer 
to God. Earth hears no other such cry. Heaven 
answers to no other such supplication. 

Everything was against this woman. On her 
own part all was dark. She belonged to an 
accursed stock. She was a pagan. Jesus was a 
Jew: and the Jews looked scornfully upon such 
as she. He had entered her country not for 
healing and teaching, but to escape them both, 
and to get rest and strength for His work among 
His own people. On His part then there was 
nothing hopeful. I lis attendants were also Jews 
from whom she could expect only repulse. Yet 
through all these obstacles she urged her way 
and her petition. It was enough for her that 



212 THE MODEL LIFE. 

Christ was there, within reach if she had the deter- 
mination to reach Him. She had heard of what 
Ho had done elsewhere. She had seen, it may 
be, others whom He had restored. He was a 
Saviour for just such as she. His name and fame 
had reached heathendom. And she would goto 
Him and seek the greatest boon. It was a ytfung 
daughter for whom she would plead. There is 
something very touching in that phrase, " whose 
young daughter had an unclean spirit." Ah ! 
so it is with the sinful possession often. Into 
young hearts Satan enters. At an early age 
we see the developments of sin, the sad proof 
that the soul is lost. 

For the young Christ is wanted. We cannot 
plead for the children too early, that they may 
be saved. Far easier is it to expel these posses- 
sions in childhood, than when they have become 
fortified in habit, in affection, in invincible pur- 
pose. Easier to drive out the enemy behind weak 
barricades than when fortifications have been 
builded of adamant. Be earnest for the young ! 
Parent! teacher! now is the time for the earnest 
plea with Christ, the cry of the soul that will 
take no denial. Make the case of each child, one 
by one, your own. Let your prayer be, Have 
mercy on me ! 

There is suggested here a striking contrast. 
In the first twenty-three verses of the chapter 
we have the painful account of the traditions 
and ceremonial of the self-righteous Pharisees. 



CHRIST MANIFEST TO ALL. 213 

Christ was with them : He was ready to in. 
struct them, and to bless them, in fact to save 
them. They were of His own nation ; they were 
the lost ones of the House of Israel, for whom 
particularly He was sent. In their sight His 
divine miracles were wrought. In their hearing 
His divine words were spoken. He offered 
them Himself and all that He could do for them. 
Yet He was hidden to them. They could not, 
they would not see Him. They were occupied 
with the washing of hands before eating, the 
washing of cups and pots, brazen vessels, and 
tables. They honored God with their lips : but 
their heart was far from Him. They taught 
for doctrines, the commandments of men. They 
had their own traditions: and these were more 
than the gospel to them, making void the word 
of God. Such men wore the life out of Christ. 
They would not be saved and they hindered 
Others from being saved. They would not enter 
into the Kingdom, and those who would enter 
in they hindered. 

I>nt no sooner had He reached a pagan coun- 
try than He could not be hid. If he had 
remained there probably the whole people would 
have sought Mini, and that beautiful prophecy 
would have found a partial fulfillment, " I will 
give thee the heathen for thine inheritance." 
And the contrast lasts. Brought up with the 
Bible in your hands and in your language, edu- 
cated by pious parents and teachers, listening to 



214 THE MODEL LIFE. 

the gospel and knowing, acknowledging even, its 
value, you do not accept of Christ. 

Yet shall there come among you one from a 
land that knows not Christ nor the Bible, who 
has had no religious teaching, no Christian 
parentage, no privileges such as belong to you 
and have always been enjoyed by you, and in a 
short residence among you and after a brief 
acquaintance with the Bible, he shall learn such 
things of Christ that he shall want Him for a 
Saviour and shall see such wisdom in the Bible 
that he shall yield to its instructions and shall 
believe in Christ and shall say, " My only desire 
is to confess before men that I accept Him as 
mv Saviour and Redeemer." "And I desire to 
connect myself with His Church that I may 
honor Him by obeying His commandments and 
by living a life devoted to His service." 

The men of Japan and of China shall enter 
into the Kingdom before you ! You are occu- 
pied with your vain traditions. They accept the 
living word of God. You put faith in morali- 
ties. They put faith in Christ. You put off 
your duty. They perform it. You stay out of 
the Kingdom. They press into it. Forms are 
one thing : the need of the soul is another. 
There is a vast difference between mere morality 
and true faith. There is an eternal difference 
between the world and Christ. You may be 
lost ; while they are saved. 

The Syrophamician woman was at the feet of 



CHRIST MANIFEST TO ALL. 215 

Christ. " But He answered her not a word." 
As Chrysostom says, " The Word has no word." 
The Lord is silent. He seems to have even 
turned away from her and moved on. But she 
cried after Him, so that the disciples besought 
Him to send her away. Then His speech 
seemed harder than His silence. " I am not 
sent but unto the lost sheep of the House of 
Israel." She came closer then : and there was 
a deeper earnestness in her voice, as she said 
only, " Lord, help me." That cry surely must 
avail. Yet the Lord coldly said, " It is not meet 
to take the children's bread and cast it to dogs." 
The Jews considered and treated all other people 
as barbarians and dogs. And Christ uses their 
language to try her faith. Was there ever such 
trial? Silence: cold speech: contemptuous 
reproach. Dogs! Can the crushed woman 
bear that? Will she not now despair? Will 
she not go away, humbled, broken, ready to give 
over and to feel that all is lost. 

So would it have been with many. They 
could not have persevered through such 
obstacles, indignities. But out of her despair 
she wrenched an argument. In her misery she 
used, as one has called it, " the ready wit of 
faith." Listen to her. " Truth, Lord ; yet the 
dogs under the table cat of the children's crumbs." 
She accepts the Lord's own word ; takes the 
title and the place, the lowest, place, yet the 
place where crumbs of mercy fall. As Luther 



216 THE MODEL LIFE. 

says, " She snares Christ in His own words." 
She was willing to take the dog's place if only 
the wasted food of the children could be her 
own. Anywhere, any tiling, if only she could be 
blessed ! A dog ! if so Christ could be hers. 
" A slave of Jesus Christ " wrote one of himself 
who was far greater than she, a man of learn- 
ing and of ancestral pride and who boasted that 
he was a free-born citizen of Rome. A slave ! 
so that Christ should be the Master. The off- 
scouring of all things, the filth of the world, if only 
for the sake of Christ. " Make me as one of thy 
hired servants " pleaded the prodigal, so that 
once more 1 may be within the father's, my 
father's, house. Though the Lord be high, yet 
hath He respect unto the lowly. Blessed are 
the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of 
heaven. At the feet of Christ is more than to be 
on a worldly throne. That is the place of faith. 
And then came victory. The Syrophcenician 
woman conquered in her lowliness. She knew 
the heart of Christ before and to her eye of 
faith it was not concealed by His words and 
manner, by coldness and repulse. She trusted 
His heart ; and now it was revealed to her. " O 
woman !" He said, " great is thy faith ! Be it 
unto thee even as thou wilt !" " For this saying, 
go thy way, the devil is gone out of thy daugh- 
ter." It was no longer a man, in the garb of a 
Jew, who stood before her. It was the Lord 
Himself. It was the King in His beauty and 



CHRIST MANIFEST TO ALL. 217 

benignity. His words now were all gracious- 
ness and benediction. His largesses were royal. 
He spoke and He gave as a King. Only to one 
other, in His earthly life, did He give such com- 
mendation, and that other was a Gentile also. 
Of a Roman centurion He said, " I have not 
found so great faith, no, not in Israel." Faith 
conquers all things ; it conquers Christ. It con- 
quers by the might which He gives. For it is 
" according to His working which worketh in us 
mightily." 

Faith looks to the right source. It trusts in 
One who is able and willing to bestow in His own 
time and way. 

Faith waits: waits through the whole trial, 
though it be through agony, through lowest 
humiliation, through heaviest loss. Faith holds 
fast : it holds on though the hand be smitten and 
wounded and bleeding. It cries with the patri- 
arch at Peniel, " I will not let thee go, except 
thou bless me." Faith has an overcoming 
power. By it the weaker vanquishes the 
si longer. By it the paralytic overcame material 
obstacles that he might be placed " before Jesus." 
By it blind Bartimeus overcame the opposition 
of his fellow-men that he might come to Jesus. 
And by it this weak pagan woman, in a land of 
heathen, overcame Christ Himself. "Great is 
thy faith." So is challenged our regard and 
imitation. Our imitation! To that are we 
brought. To low faith 



218 THE MODEL LIFE. 

To strong, invincible faith, that will take no 
denial, that will trust God though He smite the 
believer, that will cry out of the deepest humili- 
ation, " Lord, help me," will come at length the 
royal answer, " Be it unto thee even as thou wilt." 
Faith wears the crown this side of heaven. 
"Even as thou wilt." So the believer ascends 
the throne and wears the crown. His will be- 
comes imperial. But it costs something. Great 
thrones are gained through great struggles, 
through blood. " Ye have not yet resisted unto 
blood, striving against sin," writes the Apostle 
to the Hebrew Christians whom he points to 
" Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith." 
The Syrophcenician woman went very low but 
she gained her request. " Her daughter was 
made whole from that very hour." Her faith 
was the channel through which Christ's power 
poured in blessing. She was the conductor by 
which the more than electric current ran from 
the Saviour to the saved. She stood between the 
living and the dead. And through her life and 
restoration passed over to her daughter. " W hen 
she was come to her house, she found the devil 
gone out and her daughter laid upon the bed." 
The long sad days of paroxysm and vexation 
were over, and there was rest and peace and 
soundness. 

Have you, parents of children, teachers of 
children, been offering the prayer, Have mercy 
on me, O Lord, my daughter, my son, my 



CHRIST MANIFEST TO ALL. 219 

scholar, * * and then told the story of your 
woe? Unanswered, tried, sorely amazed be- 
cause of what you have heard and known of 
Christ, and now see of Him, have you still, 
against advice of others, against uprisings of 
your own heart, against the provocations of 
delay, held on, held steadily there, to Christ 
alone, with the one plea, " Lord, help me ?" 
Have you felt that your son or daughter or 
brother or husband must be saved and that there 
was no real joy for you till the rescue came ? 
That is the way of faith. That is the way to 
victory. The low place is the next place to the 
throne. The deepest darkness is just before the 
dawn. Sorest trials precede surest answers. 
Delay is not denial. Denial may be only trial. 
It may be only outward and in words: while 
the gracious, full answering awaits you. We 
may not fully answer the question, Why God so 
tries the faith of His true children. But we 
know that it brings forth a purer and stronger 
faith. That word which has in it benediction 
and coronation, " Be it unto thee even as thou 
wilt," is only spoken when He can also say, 
" Great is thy faith." That word which lifts 
saints to the side of Christ, that they also may 
sit on thrones, follows a trust that has been 
sorely, bitterly tried and has not been found 
wanting. "Said I not unto thee, that if thou 
wonldst believe, thou shouldst see the glory of 



220 THE MODEL LIFE. 

God?" The saint's own victory, the healing, 
the conversion, the immortal life of those that are 
his and for whom his unfailing prayer was lifted, 
and the bright heaven at last, are the sure 
reward. 



XVIII. 



THE UNSELFISH CHRIST. 



Ppll^ICTION has wrought its finest charac- 
iE^f! terization in self-sacrifice and devotion 
g=gli for others. Its ideal heroes have been 
those who have not consulted their own interest 
or happiness, but who have willingly or sponta- 
neously or passionately offered themselves to 
rescue others from a dreaded fate or to crown 
them with a coveted delight. For this they 
have exposed themselves to certain peril : they 
have given up their own undoubted rights 
or possessions : they have relinquished and 
smothered the love that has been their brightest 
dowry, and doomed themselves to loneliness 
and sorrow and want that they might make 
cheerful and rich and useful other lives, that 
they might make other paths smooth, though 
their own should thereby be made rough and 
rocky. This self-abnegation is the crown of 
heroic sacrifice. It gives nobility to plebeian 
blood. It glorifies aristocratic descent. It puts 
manhood foremost. It makes him chief who 
possesses it whether he holds lit les from noble 
ancestry or springs from common stock. But 

[221] 



222 THE MODEL LIFE. 

especially do the writers of fiction enjoy the 
giving of this excellent grace to those who 
stand high without it ; as though more than 
name and culture and blood and noble rank 
were the heraldry of genuine humanity, the 
devotion of the true soul to another's welfare. 
He, who has inherited an illustrious name, in 
whose paternal halls hang the likenesses of heroes, 
who looks out on broad ancestral possessions, 
who holds the keys of social eminence and 
political power and vast wealth, (or whom it is 
easy to possess and enjoy all that the world can 
give to its votaries, who is courted and loved 
and obeyed and served, is made to be greater 
and nobler and more opulent by a glad and full 
self-offering in which he sacrifices everything 
but his own regal manhood, everything outside 
of himself, that himself may be more illustrious 
and grand. 

But in this, fiction works from life. It draws its 
imaginary picture from actual reality. The great 
characters of history are the men and women who 
have sacrificed most. These are they who have 
been lauded in the verse of poets, who have in- 
spired the eloquence of orators, who have given 
charm and picturesqueness and power to narra- 
tive, who are held up as examples to stimulate 
the young and the aspiring. 

It is not those who have pleased themselves, 
who have lived merely for their own enjoyment, 
who have been satisfied to hold and improve 



THE UNSELFISH CHRIST. 223 

what they have received, who have made them- 
selves the center and have wished all thing's to 
be tributary to their personal happiness and ag- 
grandizement ; it is not those who have made the 
world's history luminous, who have poured sun- 
shine and glory on the annals of their time and 
nation : but rather those who have cheerfully 
given up their possessions and their rank and 
their services and themselves with all their en- 
dowments and advantages and influence and per- 
sonal power to secure the rights and the liberties 
and the enjoyment of others. This devotion has 
been higher than any title of nobility. It has 
brought the high-born and the base-born on to a 
common level and has shown that manhood is 
the chief title and that service is the noblest 
rank. He is honored in all true history who out 
of discouraging environment has struggled up 
into a place where he could devote his strength 
to the welfare of his fellows, as he also has been 
who, possessing everything that could satisfy his 
personal wants, has counted it his personal priv- 
ilege to deny himself that he might minister to 
others. It was when Sir Philip Sidney, wounded 
on the battle-field, refused the cup of cold water 
that a dying soldier near him might be refreshed 
by it, that his gentleness and greatness shone out 
more than when he enjoyed abundance in the 
banquet-room of his castle. It was when the first 
soldier of our time and land lay among his men 
on the ground with only the heavens forhiscov- 



--* THE MODKL LIFE. 

ering and marched with them, as one of them, 
m his determined endeavor to cut off Vicksburg 
from support in the rear, that his heroic purpose 
was revealed more than when he directed some 
great action with his staff around him or rode at 
the head of his troops at some proud review. 

Self-denial, humiliation, sacrifice, are the high- 
est honors. These put the crown on men. In 
all benevolent work, in the blessed missionary 
undertakings, j n tnat consecration which leads 
men of humanity and sympathy and love to give 
their lives for the uplifting and relief and salva- 
tion of degraded and miserable men, we see the 
daily and noble illustrations of what they are 
and of what they can accomplish who do not 
please themselves, but who hold themselves to 
be the servants of their fellows and the servants 
of their divine Lord. 

"Christ pleased not Himself." This is said 
with reference to His extraordinary work for us. 
It was something new that He did not please 
Himself. He had found pleasure during His 
eternal existence in His communion with the 
Father and the Spirit. They had enjoyed their 
mysterious and infinite being. In their great 
thoughts, their counsels, which embraced all 
space and all duration and all possible creations, 
in their warm and infinite affections which were 
full of harmony and sweetness, in their sublime 
purposes which laid hold of the greatest good 
which they could accomplish as they introduced 



THE UNSELFISH CHRIST. 225 

one order after another of beings into sensitive 
and enduring life, Christ had pleased Himself. 

And, as that one of the sacred Persons who 
was charged with the responsibility of Creation, 
He had pleased Himself in calling forth upon 
different spheres and scenes responsible agents, 
made in His own image, made as nearly like 
Godhead as finite existences can be like infinite ; 
inhabitants of His own heaven, retainers of His 
palace, servants of His throne, swift as light and 
burning as fire to do His will ; inhabitants of 
other worlds fitted in their endowments for life 
where they were placed, fitted to learn and 
achieve and grow, to grow steadily throughout 
an existence which, begun, should never end, 
fitted to enjoy or to suffer according to their use 
or misuse of themselves and their surroundings, 
fitted also as a chief endowment to decide on 
their own course, their own character, and so on 
their own destiny. He had pleased Himself in 
launching from His Almighty hand the number- 
less worlds which crowd the heavens, and giving 
them their appointed orbits so that they move 
without discord on their separate but harmon- 
ious paths, those heavenly choirs, without speech, 
without language, whose voice is not heard, yet 
whose resonant line has gone into all the earth 
and their words unto the end of the world : in 
covering each world with its own wonderful 
drapery of organized life, trees that live for a 
thousand years and perpetuate themselves, flow- 



^ THE MODEL LIFE. 

ers that bloom in almost infinite variety and 
beauty and fragrance, fruits that refresh and 
please and satisfy : in peopling air and earth and 
water with their peculiar and appropriate deni- 
zens: and in giving- to all these their appropriate 
and protecting and unchanging and universal 
laws. 

In all this, and in much more of which we do 
not know, and which we cannot even imagine, 
Christ had been accustomed to please Himself. ' 
But a new work stood before Him ; a new 
endeavor rose to His choice. A world had 
swung out of harmony. A race had sacrificed 
their birthright: had dishonored their Creator: 
had entered on a black career of sin. The ques- 
tion arose whether they should be saved. The 
problem, new, strange, momentous, confronted 
Christ, whether He would save them. 

We do not know how much it involved. There 
are mysterious hints in Scripture that it involved 
personal sacrifices into the meaning of which we 
are unfitted to enter, sacrifices which God only 
could take the measure of, which had respect 
solely to the relations of the divine Trinity. 

But we know some things, enough to show us 
that when Christ decided on the enterprise of 
our salvation, He took on Him a burden the like 
of which had never been borne, and which His 
shoulders only were strong enough to bear. We 
have never stood where He was when He came 
to that decision. We have never yet entered 



THE UNSELFISH CHRIST. 227 

that world that was His home. Our eyes have 
not seen its furniture. Our ears have not heard 
its music. Our minds have not formed the con- 
ception of its glory and its wealth. We have 
not seen God, nor the throne of God, nor the 
palace of the One King. But we have heard 
something of it. There have been wonderful 
revelations about it in the Book. And some- 
times we have had such longings to know more 
of it that some of us would willingly die to know. 
But this matter of our salvation involved 
exile from that world, discrowning of that King, 
abandonment of that throne, separation from 
those who dwelt there. " Christ pleased not 
Himself." To the amazement of angels, He left. 
The crown that had never been tarnished was 
laid aside. He had always worn it till then. 
The throne which had forever known Him as the 
Eternal King was forsaken. The Father, with 
whom He had dwelt before the morning stars 
sang together, in the old eternity, when there 
was but one Being in the universe, and He was 
enough to Jill it, was left. All that made heaven, 
its society, its glory and beauty, its worship, its 
uninterrupted blessedness, all were left. It 
could not please Him. He loved that world ; all 
who dwelt there, all that transpired there, all 
that He had been used to there, beyond any love 
that we can imagine. He went forth to a home- 
sickness that never had a parallel. He went out 
with a heartsickness that Christ only could bear. 



228 



THE MODEL LIFE. 



Here we find one deep meaning of the words, 
" Christ pleased not himself." He had love. Old 
associations were clear to Him. Old friendships 
were infinitely precious to Him. He could not 
break away without sundering ties that were 
infinitely strong and sacred and sweet. Let us 
not think it was God who did it, unless we 
impute to the God who did it, Godlike affection, 
Godlike strength of attachment, infinite tender- 
ness of association and endearment. He broke it 
all. He gave up everything. He sacrificed 
everything that was precious and then — Himself. 

Not only was the glorious abode that had 
always been His to be renounced, but He, if our 
salvation were to be undertaken, was to endure a 
humiliation greater than had ever before been 
seen. It was the supreme humiliation of the 
universe ! For the Creator to take the place of 
a creature were a lowly and a displeasing thing to 
do. But that was not the extent of Christ's 
descent. That was only the beginning of it. 
That excited wonder and consternation among 
the angels who had always seen Him in the first 
place of heaven ; and Judea was filled with their 
anxious and excited representatives when the 
miracle of Bethlehem occurred. In that lowly 
manger was one who had been used to an 
unequalcd throne. In that puny form was the 
nature of Divinity. Hidden in that innocent 
guise was the adorable God. He who had made 
all things and controlled all things by the word 



THE UNSELFISH CHRIST. 229 

of His power, was now in the place of helpless- 
ness, a babe in the arms of a human mother. It 
behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren. 
If He would be the Mediator between God and 
man it was necessary that He who had experi- 
enced all that there is in Godhead should experi- 
ence all that there is in humanity. So He 
became like unto us and went through all that 
we go through in our life of growth and develop- 
ment. And the Scriptures are careful to speak 
of His growth in stature and in wisdom and in 
favor with God and men. 

Now, we do not think enough even of this ; we 
do not realize what a profound condescension it 
was. 

But, as I said, that was trifling compared with 
what followed it. He went not only into the 
place of lowliness, but He went into the place of 
weariness and unrecompensed toil and thankless 
deeds of compassion. Stand with Him in His 
frightful temptation : stand with Him at the 
well of Samaria : stand with Him among the 
surging multitudes who hung on his words, as 
He pitifully healed the sick, the sightless, the 
dumb, the lame; as He raised the dead; as He 
helped the miserable and the sinful into light 
and comfort and peace; as He bore the griefs 
and carried the sorrows of men. Weary days, 
weary nights, fasting, cold, desertion, dread 
loneliness, were His. But that was not all, nor 
the worst. He was denied, He was betrayed, 



230 THE MODEL LIFE. 

He was crucified. He saw His trusted friends 
deserting Him and He saw His enemies grati- 
fied in His overthrow and death. There is a 
mysterious awe about Gethsemane and Calvary. 
The profoundest mystery of the passion we do 
not understand. It is dimly signified to us in 
the urgent and unanswered prayers of the 
garden that the Father would permit the cup to 
pass from Him, and in the cry of the cross, My 
God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me! 
It were sad enough to bear the load of human 
sins, but to have that work someway separate 
Him from God, hide the face that He loved so 
well, that was beyond endurance, and that broke 
the heart of Christ. 

We are standing now near to the truth, 
" Christ pleased not Himself." The nearer we 
come to the cross, the more we realize the 
endurance of our Lord, the greater will be our 
wonder, and the greater should be our grati- 
tude, that lie was willing to experience such 
sufferings for us. 

For us He died. He was happy and glo- 
rious without us: and would have been if we 
had not been saved. He was under no obliga- 
tion to us, nor to His government, nor to His 
own character, to save us. Our ruin was self- 
ruin. Our apostasy was voluntary. But it 
was gracious and noble and God-like in Him to 
do it. It was an eternal honor to His throne 
that such humiliation was permitted. It will 



THE UNSELFISH CHBIST. 231 

forever be the brightest glory of Godhead that 
redemption was accomplished. The central 
symbol and characterization of heaven is the 
Lamb slain. Wherever God is known, wherever 
the attributes and perfections of God are hon- 
ored, there it will be forever known and cele- 
brated that Christ became the Redeemer of 
men. Though He did not please Himself; 
though instead of the joy that was set before 
Him, He endured the cross and became obedi- 
ent unto death ; yet in that service and sacrifice 
was His peerless honor. 

Let us not seek to please ourselves. Let us 
not ask what is the easy and the pleasant way. 
Let us not shirk the hard and painful service of 
our Christian profession. Let us imitate Christ. 
Let us cherish the heroic spirit of the martyr 
ages. Let us be like the young Christian who 
said to the missionary board, Send me to the 
hardest place: or like another who said, Let me 
go where no one else will go. Let us in our 
work for our adorable Lord, take up the cross, 
deny ourselves, sacrifice personal ease and indul- 
gence, that we may in all ways and all places, 
do that which will most effectively advance the 
honor and kingdom of Him who pleased not 
Himself that He might save us. 



XIX. 

CHRIST THE REVEALER OF GOD. 

GREAT want of our race is the knowl- 
edge of God. All men, for we throw 
entirely out of the account the fools who 
have denied the existence of their Maker, have 
felt their accountability to some superior intel- 
ligence, some divine Being, in whose controlling 
hand they are and before whom they are to 
stand for the decisive investigations of the 
world's great clay. By whatsoever name they 
have called Him, under whatever form they 
have conceived of His existence, it has been a 
relief to them to think that there is one over 
them to whose sway they are subject and that 
the world is not driven forward by blind chance 
and that they themselves are not bound down by 
an unrelenting fate. 

Various indeed have been their notions of 
God. The mystical and philosophic Brahman 
has invented a divine trinity as best satisfying 
his refined speculations. Grecian and Roman 
mythology peopled the universe with gods many. 
The old Teutonic race enthroned a deity of 
power above the v/crld whose will was supreme 

[233] 



234 



THE MODEL LIFE. 



over all human things. Other peoples, unable 
to distinguish the Creator from His works, have 
seen God in the sun, which, like a divine Eye, 
gazed daily upon the entire world around which 
it circled : in the still stars, which, like sentinels 
commissioned by the great King, stand on at! 
the outposts of his dominions and keep silent 
ward and watch over all His creatures: in the 
solemn mountains, on whose turreted pinnacles 
are pitched His pavilions, now bathed in the 
glory of sunlight, and then veiled in the mists 
of massive clouds: in the dark woods, whose 
awful recesses and unexplored caverns conceal 
the court of the avenging monarch : in the view- 
less tempest and the wild storm whose shriek 
pierces their dwellings at midnight and whose 
path over the land and upon the sea is marked 
by uptorn forests and shattered tenements and 
dismantled wrecks: in the cataract whose mist 
rises like the smoke of sacrifice to His throne 
and whose voice is like a ceaseless anthem up- 
borne to His praise : in the broad, deep stream, 
whose waters fertilize vast territories: in the 
solemn sea, whose floods ebb and flow as 
though by their own will they daily and nightly 
visited the shores of many lands, now gently 
advancing and retreating along their sandy 
bounds and then madly dashing against their 
rocky coasts. 

A God, of some kind, men will have. They 
know that they are weak : that somewhere there 



CHRIST THE REVEALER OF GOD. 235 

must be power. At times they feel a reaching 
out for better sympathies, for holier love, than 
they can find in beings like themselves. Yet 
meagre and unsatisfying are their best unassisted 
conceptions of the Divine Being. God is remote. 
Eye hath not seen Him. Ear hath not heard His 
voice. Heart hath not. felt the throbbings of 
His heart. Man feels like an orphan. He feels 
like a stranger in his father's home. He feels 
that the God has no sympathies with him. He 
cannot apprehend the Great Spirit, the awe of 
whose presence falls like a heavy, dark shadow 
upon him. He feels after God, if haply he may 
find Him. He looks into the depth : but the 
depth says, " He is not in me." He looks to the 
height: but the height says, " He is not here." 
He takes the wings of the morning and flies to 
the utmost bounds of the earth: but there he 
finds Him not for whom his soul languishes. He 
searches the darkness and the light: but they both 
declare that lie is not in them. He questions the 
planets as they roll : but from their cold spheres 
they answer nothing. He calls to the universe 
peopled everywhere by His power: but all 
peoples and worlds say, " We know Him not." 
Still the baffled inquirer knows that God is, and 
thai He is everywhere. Perplexed, saddened, 
the solitary orphan sobs for his Father. His 
human heart yearns for divine, paternal sym- 
pathies. His voice moans in anxious inquiry: 
"Tell me, thou whom my soul loveth, where I 



236 THE MODEL LIFE. 

can find Thee. Draw me, and I will run after 
Thee. Oh that Thou wert as my brother!" 
To man thus dejected and forsaken, comes one 
fairer than the sons of men, representing Him- 
self as their elder brother, yet claiming equality 
with God, and says, " Behold Him for whom you 
long, for whom, elsewhere, you seek in vain." 
It is Jesus. And He says unto us, " I am the 
way and the truth and the life : no man cometh 
unto the Father but by Me. If ye had known 
Me, ye should have known My Father also : and 
from henceforth ye know Him and have seen 
Him." And when, like Philip, we say, " Lord, 
show us the Father, and it sufficeth us," we may, 
each one of us, hear Jesus saying unto us, " Have 
I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou 
not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me 
hath seen the Father : and how say est thou then 
'show us the Father?' Believe me, that I am 
in the Father, and the Father in me ; or else if my 
word is not enough, believe me for the sake of 
the works which I do and which none but God 
can do." 

In Christ man's greatest want is fully met. In 
Him he finds his God. Let us think of Christ, as 
revealing God. 

The Scriptural doctrine is that Hisadvent was 
the manifestation of God. Says the beloved dis- 
ciple, " For the Life was manifested, anc} we 
have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto 
you that Eternal Life which was with the Father, 



CHRIST THE REVEA.LER OF GOD. 237 

and was manifested unto us." The whole force 
of the Scripture representation is to this effect, 
that Jesus Christ proceeded from God and was 
God and revealed by His life the heart of God 
to the race. Exclude these ideas from its teach- 
ings, and the Bible becomes mere rhapsody and 
its meaning is emptied out. The Son of Man, 
who is also the Son of God, was not wholly of 
human, nor wholly of divine, origin. As it is 
stated in the Apostles' Creed, he " was conceived 
by the Holy Ghost and born of the Virgin 
Mary." That divinity might become incarnate 
He subjected himself to the necessities of our 
estate, and that He might be the more closely 
related to us and might reveal Himself more 
fully to us, He separated not Himself from the 
entire experiences of our humanity. That we 
might comprehend Him, He appeared in the 
likeness of men, felt the burdens of our nature, 
shared in the infirmities as in the joys of our lot. 
'•The Word was made flesh." "I came forth 
from the Father and am come into the world." 
" He that was in the form of God, and was made 
in fashion as a nrn." " In whom dwelt all the 
fullness of the Godhead bodily." "The Father 
is in me and I in Him." " Who is the image of 
the invisible God." " 1 and my Father are one." 
"O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, 
with the glory which I had with thee before the 
world was." Such passages as these, numerous 
and striking, force us to the conclusion that this 



238 THE MODEL LIFE. 

extraordinary person, this Jesns, with his won- 
derful gifts and claims, with His remarkable life 
and death, was indeed divine. As we meditate 
upon them all, we exclaim with the Roman cen- 
turion at the cross, " Truly this was the Son of 
God !" With Thomas, we cry, " My Lord and 
my God !" With the disciples gazing after their 
ascending Lord, we worship Him. With " every 
creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, 
and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, 
and all that are in them," we say, " Blessing and 
honor, and glory, and power, be unto Him that 
sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, for 
ever and ever." 

Christ's advent was the manifestation of God 
to men. That great fact is the most luminous 
truth of Scripture. It is the sun of revelation, 
the center, the light, and the life of all the other 
truths which circle around this. 

The motive for this revelation was sufficient 
to secure it. It might be thought a strange thing 
and improbable, not to say absurd and impossible, 
that God should thus reveal Himself to creatures. 
But we have seen what men are, to what con- 
clusions they come, when unassisted. The great 
majority are pagans ; the minority struggle after 
unattainable truth. But God wishes to be 
known. All His works are proofs that He does 
not seek to conceal Himself. The things that 
are made declare their Maker. The visible 
creation reveals the invisible Creator. Ourselves 



CHRIST THE REVEALER OF GOD. 239 

announce God to us. But who is the God ? asks 
the wondering student of his works. Where is 
He, that I may behold Him ? What is He, that 
I may comprehend Him and worship Him ? 
These results that we see around us allow us to 
place no limit to His attributes. That Power 
which could create the worlds, whose number no 
finite mind can compute, is such that we stand 
abashed before it, and because we can say nothing 
else which expresses the idea any better, we call 
it infinite ; the infinite being as incomprehensible 
by us as the God. And then the providence of 
God, how vast it is ! Who by searching can 
find it out? It reaches to the tiniest flower on 
whose fair bosom sparkles the dewy gem ; to 
the star whose light reaches us only after a 
journey of a thousand years ; to the little birds 
that sing in many a shady covert, the sparrows 
that fall not unobserved by the eye of God ; to 
the cattle on a thousand hills ; to the pearls that 
lie in the unfathomed abysses of the sea; to the 
painted leaves of the forest with which Autumn 
adorns the departing year ; to every wind that 
blows and every shower that falls; to the ripen- 
ing corn and all the fruits of the harvest time ; to 
the dweller on the mountain side ; to the dweller 
in the thronged city, to those who go down to 
the sea in ships, to the kings on their thrones, 
and to lonely, watching ones in their exile. 

And this all-reaching, all-governing provi- 
dence, we also call infinite. And so as we in- 



240 THE MODEL LIFE. 

vestigate the divine attributes, all, all is infinite. 
We are lost in the boundless, incomprehensible 
existence which we call God. We can only bow 
down and adore, in awe, afar. There are no 
sympathies as yet between us. We cannot fall 
on the bosom of our Father : we cannot come to 
Him as dear children : He is to us the dreadful 
God, the almighty and everlasting Jehovah. 
Now, here it is that the revelation of God in 
Christ becomes significant to us. In order that 
God may reveal himself to us, in order that we 
may know Him, in order that His attributes may 
come within the range of our perception and 
sympathy, in order that this distance between us 
and God may be bridged over, He becomes 
Immanuel, God with us, God manifest in the 
flesh, the fullness of God revealed bodily. In 
no other way can the result be reached so well, 
so directly, as by the incarnation of the Son. 
And the same motive which would lead God to 
express Himself at all, which would lead Him to 
the work of creation, would also lead Him to 
appear in the likeness of men. Man is God's 
chief est work out of heaven. The life of God 
brought into the history of the life of the race 
would be no disparagement of His glory, while 
it would most intimately and impressively and 
tenderly reveal Him to us. W^ cannot come 
directly to Jehovah. The finite cannot stand 
before the infinite. We must have some me- 
dium through which we can approach the God- 



CHRIST THE REVEALED OF GOD. 24l 

head. Hi9 throne is too awful for us. The 
light in which He dwells is too dazzling for our 
weak vision. Christ therefore is what we want. 
Christ the way, the truth, the life, meet9 human 
need. We can come unto the Father by Him, 
To secure such perfect adaptation to a glorious 
end, the very end of God in all His works, is 
surely not beneath the benevolent God. If He 
would have us know Him and, because we know 
Him, love Him, He will reveal Himself lovingly 
to us, and that He has done in Christ. " He 
that hath seen me, hath seen the Father." 

The most important perfections of God can be 
communicated to us through Christ. There is 
much of mystery about the Incarnation. It is a 
great, solitary, wonderful fact in the world's 
otherwise trivial history. But if we take it in 
its most obvious significance, in the simplest but 
greatest meaning which it was designed to 
embody and manifest, God in man, doing and 
dying for the sins of the world, then it becomes 
a full and apparent and perfect and glorious 
revelation of Deity. What we want most of all 
to know is that God loves us, that He sympa- 
thizes with us, that He can be reconciled to us, 
that there can be union between us and Him. 
If we know these things, if they can be brought 
home to us as evident and felt realities, then the 
greatest result is gained. God in Christ 
secures this. If we accept this one fact, all the 
rest becomes plain, necessary truth. If God 



242 THE MODEL LIFE. 

was in Christ, if Jesus was the Son of God, 
then how closely to us is brought the infinite 
heart of God, then how real appears His love to 
us, then how are we drawn to Him in confidence, 
in filial affection, in holy intimacy ! 

" No man hath seen God at any time :" but 
we have seen " the only begotten Son, who hath 
declared Him," " who is the image of the 
invisible God." We look in wonder and in love 
at His life. It is all pure, holy, blessed. It is 
full of the largest sympathies, the tenderest love, 
the divinest compassions. It goes to the 
lowliest, the most miserable, the guiltiest, the 
most abandoned, with its radiance, its charity, 
its cheer, its benediction, its warm regard. It 
arrests thoughtful and wise men, like the young 
lawyer and the learned Nicodemus, with its 
loftiness and its disinterestedness. It touches 
the heart of sympathizing, charitable, affection- 
ate woman : and she loves and trusts and clings 
to Him through all adverse scenes and fierce 
persecutions, not ashamed to wash His feet with 
tears and wipe them with the hair of her head, 
not reluctant to open her house to Him against 
whom the doors of Pharisee and scribe were 
shut, anointing His head with costliest ointment, 
weeping at His cross which she is the last to 
leave, and watching at His sepulchre which she 
is the first to reach. It beams on the trusting 
heart of childhood, when His words, " Suffer the 
little children to come unto me," fall like sweetest 



CHRIST THE REVEALER OF GOD. 243 

music on their ears, and they look up to His face 
with smiles and nestle in His bosom as lambs in 
the bosom of the kind shepherd when he gently 
carries them in his arms. 

It rises before the poor, the unfortunate, the 
friendless, the sad, the heavy-laden, with a quiet, 
attractive loveliness and assures them of aid and 
comfort and rest. It rebukes the cunning crafti- 
ness, and meanness, and oppression of wicked 
men by its nobleness and sternness, and purity, 
and awful goodness. It is a life ever serene, ma- 
jestic, simple, reverent, loving, Godlike. And 
through it all and in its crowning work, His mys- 
terious death, God reveals Himself to us, as 
God was never conceived of before, oculd never 
have been conceived of. Here is love, rich, over- 
flowing, unequaled. Here is compassion, mercy, 
placableness, tenderest union to us, benevolent 
sympathy for us, all indeed that we need to know 
of God, to lead us to trust Him, and to love 
Him. When we look upon God in Christ, He is 
no longer the stern, remote, ncomprehensible, 
awful Monarch: He is our kind, most loving 
Father. " He that hath seen me hath seen the 
Father." And such a Father ! And this is God, 
doing all that Christ did, feeling for us all that 
Christ felt, suffering for us all that Christ suf- 
fered, dying for us as Christ died. Need we 
anything more? Is not this a most precious 
revelation? Let us then not stay away from 
this God of ours. Let us not doubt and won- 



244 THE MODEL LIFE. 

der and despise, until we perish, as though 
the great God could not condescend to all 
this. Let us receive and welcome the rev- 
elation and say of one who manifests such quali- 
ties of goodness, such attributes of greatness, 
every thing indeed to win us : This God shall 
be my God. 

This revealing of God through Christ is suited 
to our nature. Responsive chords were struck 
whatever Christ did in the sight of men. Their 
heart-strings thrilled at His every tone. Many 
indeed stood aloof and mocked the carpenter's 
son. Jews in their bigotry, Greeks in their 
wisdom, despised Him. Pharisee, Sadducee, 
scribe, priests, doctors of the law; what was 
the Nazarene to them ? But ah ! there is a world 
of meaning in that one recorded fact: "The 
common people heard Him gladly." He taught 
them " not as the scribes." Rough soldiers, 
men hardened in war, sent by those in authority 
to take Him, dared not touch Him, though He 
stood alone, unarmed, so awed were they by 
His words, so unconsciously did He draw them 
to Himself by His wonderful power, and their 
only excuse was, " Never man spake like this 
man." 

Wherever He went, along the Sea of Galilee, 
into the solitary wilderness, into the village or 
the thronged city, the multitudes were around 
Him. He was a joy to many an aged Anna and 
many a waiting Simeon. Many a Mary sat 



CHRIST THE REVEALER OF GOD. 245 

gladly at His feet and heard His words. Rude 
fishermen were beguiled by Him away from 
their nets and boats. The publican left his taxes 
to be gathered by others. Gentle and pure- 
hearted women, those who ministered to Him, 
and wept for His loss, loved him through all to 
the fatal end. 

Now this wide, deep love, this unconquerable 
attachment, shown to Christ while He was 
alive; yes, shown still stronger by those who 
since His ascension have loved Him whom they 
have not seen, loved Him so well that many 
floods could not drown their affection, nor 
many tires consume it : that rack, sword, cruel 
death, no device of man. no temptation of Satan, 
could make them swerve from it, proves that this 
revelation of God, of His heart, of His perfec- 
tions, is just what is suited to our nature. The 
best way in which God can reach man is through 
Christ. God, as revealed in the person of His 
Son in the flesh, has power over human hearts 
beyond any other power which could have been 
brought to bear upon them. In this divine Per- 
son, who wept like an orphan over Jerusalem, 
who prayed as a child for an erring parent for 
th >se who crucified Him, who, though He had 
not where to lay His head, toiled on for those 
who would not receive Him, who bore reproach, 
persecution, desertion of friends, who at last 
died for those who nailed Him to the cross, is 
the Friend, the Brother, the God, for whom the 



24:6 THE MODEL LIFE. 

human heart, convinced of its need and roused 
to its guilt and its danger, everywhere longs. 
O this sight of God as He is in Christ, this see- 
ing the Father in the Son, this baring of the 
divine heart before us, is the greatest, dearest, 
divinest truth on earth! 



XX. 

CHRIST THE PEOPLE'S PREACHER. 



N one day our Lord's audience was made 
up of publicans and sinners. They 
wished to hear Him once ; and they 
streamed together to the place where He stood 
and quite surrounded Him. It was a picture 
for a painter. He so calm and grand, with a 
look of nobleness, and of tenderness mingled 
on His fine face lighted ever with a radiance 
from His own heaven, sympathy in every 
expression of His features, and every movement 
of His person, and every tone of His rich 
voice, the central figure on the open market- 
place : they rough and harsh, from their hateful 
tasks or their low living, with the grime of the 
world on them ; old Roman tax-gatherers, hard 
with the hand of oppression, and the exacting 
clutch on the poor and perverse'; old Jewish trans- 
gressors, bred in sin, adepts in wrong and lust 
and hate, glaring on Him with eyes blood-shot 
and faces foul from the slums, men who never 
before met in peace, surrounding with wonder 
and inquiry and hushed stillness this Man of men, 
the great Healer and Teacher of the time ! 

C 2 47] 



248 THE MODEL LIFE. 

The}' came near unto Him : the hanas of some 
of them might have reached His hand : they 
could look into His placid eyes : every word 
could be heard by them : the shadow of His 
person would fall on them as the sun declined. 

They came to hear Him : feeling that He had 
something to say to them : knowing that they 
needed to hear what one like Him should speak. 
There they are. One can see the group in that 
Jewish town. 

What will the Saviour say to them ? 

It is a matter of thrilling interest to know. 
We can imagine what He might have spoken 
of: He who knew all things: He whose home 
and throne were ever of old in heaven: He who 
knew all that was in man and whose eye ran 
along every path on which the guilty feet of 
the men before Him had ever been. What will 
He say to them ? - 

It is a matter that concerns us. For what He 
said to them is what He would speak, what He 
does speak to us. If we are not publicans we 
are sinners, and we need the very words which 
they would need : with them we should come 
near to Him to hear His word. 

Outside was a group of scowling scribes and 
Pharisees, big in the conceit of their piety, 
whose envious and hateful murmur could be 
heard : " This man receiveth sinners, and eateth 
with them." The Lord heard : the publicans 
and sinners heard. And He spake : so artlessly 



CHRIST THE PEOPLE'S PREACHER. 249 

is it told of Him : taking no notice of those 
proud Pharisees in the outer rim of His audi- 
ence : looking only into the eyes, looking deeper 
only into the hearts, of these who were nearest 
and who wanted just the right word, who were 
waiting for it and who perhaps would be saved 
by it : He spake this parable unto them. What 
man of you, He said, stretching forth His hand 
to them, speaking so personally that every onf 
of them felt that He was addressing him, hav- 
ing a hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth 
not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, 
and go after that which is lost, until he find it? 
And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his 
shoulders, rejoicing. And when he cometh home 
he calleth together his friends and neighbors, 
saying unto them, Rejoice with me: for I have 
found my sheep which was lost. I say unto you, 
that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one 
sinner that repenteth more than over ninety and 
nine just persons that need no repentance. That 
was Christ's first word to those hard but listen- 
ing men. They knew that they were sinners: 
that they were lost : and He wanted them to 
know that they were thought of and loved and 
sought for: that there was a Good Shepherd 
who was seeking them to save them. 

What man of you ; any one of you having a 
flock of one hundred sheep, if one were lost, 
would leave the ninety-nine in the accustomed 



250 THE MODEL LIFE. 

pasture-ground, and would go after the lost one 
until you have found it. 

There is a great meaning in the little word 
which is rendered " after; " it implies that he goes 
with the intention and strong purpose to find 
that strayed one and to bring it back. His 
whole heart is in the undertaking and he will 
not be balked in it. He will climb the mountain 
sides : he will ford the mountain streams ; he 
will breast the mountain winds and through 
flood and tempest and wilderness will persevere 
until somewhere he will find the lost. And then 
he will not drive it before him and whip it back 
to the flock, nor even commit it to a hireling, 
but will lift it to his own shoulders and bear it 
over the rough way, rejoicing that he has not 
searched in vain ; that the wild stream did not 
sweep it off on its torrent ; that the wild beast 
did not seize it as his prey ; that the wild storm 
did not pelt it to death. So glad is he, that, on 
reaching home, he calls his friends and his 
neighbors together and bids them rejoice with 
him that he has found the sheep that was lost. 

The publicans and sinners could all appreciate 
the parable. Then the Saviour applies it to 
them : telling them that there is more joy in 
heaven over one sinner that repenteth than over 
ninety-nine righteous persons who have no need 
of repentance. They knew, those rough men 
knew, what he meant. They knew that even 
then the Good Shepherd stood before them, 



CHRIST THE PEOPLE'S PREACHER. 251 

that he was even then seeking them to save 
them. 

They were as the lost sheep ; He the Shepherd 
seeking to save. It was not a story merely that 
they were hearing : it was a statement of them- 
selves. They could anticipate, as they stood 
there in the market-place of that old Galilean 
town, those wonderful pictures of the early 
Christian art in which the Saviour is depicted 
as the Shepherd bearing home on His shoulders 
the lost but found sheep. His tender words 
were words for them. The Hebrew scriptures 
were full of the figure of the strayed sheep and 
of the Lord as the Shepherd of the people. And 
now in fuller meaning than that of the old scrip- 
tures, He who was always the Shepherd of the 
flock set before these listening sinners His own 
undaunted activity and loving solicitude and 
heavenly joy in their recovery. What other 
message could have been so timely and so true ? 
What else could He have spoken so fitted to 
touch and subdue those hard natures which 
would yet respond to sympathy and love ? 

Among them perhaps were some women, 
mothers, wives, sisters of the men grouped 
around Him. He, who saw into their hearts, 
who perhaps knew that some of them longed for 
peace and forgiveness, quickly spoke a word for 
them. 

Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, 
if she lose one piece, doth not light a candle, 



252 



TETK MODEL LIFE. 



and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she 
find it? And when she hath found it she calleth 
her female friends and neighbors together, say- 
ing, Rejoice with me, for I have found the piece 
which I had lost. Likewise, I say unto you, 
there is joy in the presence of the angels of God 
over the sinner that repenteth. It was a small 
thing, one piece of silver, ten of which were not 
worth two dollars, but it was one-tenth of all that 
she had. They could understand, those Galilean 
women, the story of the quickly lighted candle, 
the broom flying across the floor, the diligent 
and unceasing search into every corner and 
cranny, until the white coin was seen and recov- 
ered. Every piece of that coin bore the image 
of the Emperor: and that image was not effaced 
though it were covered with dust and the sweep- 
ings of the floor. They knew that they, lost 
women, sinners, bore the divine image and that 
however depraved they might have become in 
association with men of sin and perversity, yet 
they were thought of and valued and sought for ; 
and they could not help feeling in that great 
presence that the very Saviour whom they 
needed stood before them, within reach of their 
soiled hands and sordid souls. 

Those were blessed words of hope, taken from 
the experience of their household life, assuring 
them that (he anxiety pictured in the lighted 
candle and the sweeping broom and the success- 
ful search, was that which He felt for them, that 



CHRIST THE PEOPLE'S PREACHER. 253 

out of all their sins, their lost condition, they 
might be rescued, and that He had come for 
that. 

And I think that many a poor desolate woman's 
soul in that strange group around the Master 
beat with a new hope as she felt sorrow for her 
sad sin and looked into those eyes of heavenly 
pity. That was Christ's second word to the 
gathered sinners. And then He impressed upon 
them, out of what they knew of the joy of find- 
ing a lost treasure or a prized coin, their own 
relation to those who would like to rejoice in 
their salvation. Likewise, there is joy in the 
presence of the angels of God over one sinner 
that repenteth. Let one of you now repent and 
begin a new life and you shall waken a joy 
throughout heaven: God will rejoice and angels 
will rejoice over a soul lost and found. There 
is joy : now, immediately on the conversion: and 
it is just as natural as when a glad woman re- 
joices for the piece of silver that is found, or as 
when a shepherd exults that his wandering sheep 
has been rescued from the perils of the moun- 
tains. 

But this is not all ; the Saviour has still another 
message for them ; perhaps He sees that their 
hearts are made tender by His kind, loving 
speech. They did not expect such words from 
Him ; He so pure and good ; they so mean and 
sinful. Unexpected words of kindness break 
down, proudest, hardest natures. It is told of our 



254 THE MODEL LIFE. 

bold Gen. Hooker, who lately died, that, during 
the war, in the severe winter, he visited our 
military prison at Rock Island where three 
thousand rebel prisoners were confined. They 
were all drawn up in line for his inspection, and 
he scanned every man from head to heel, as he 
passed before them. At the end of the line the 
General halted and half wheeled his proud horse 
and lifted his plumed hat with knightly grace to 
those rebels as though they had been princes, 
and with gentle look and voice said : " Young 
gentlemen, I am sorry, very sorry for you, and 
hope soon our differences will be settled so that 
you all can return safely home again." It was 
so unexpected and so different from what they 
had been accustomed to hear that it thrilled 
them like a current of electricity and instantly 
from those " ragged rebs.'' three thousand 
throats gave a ringing cheer for fighting Joe 
Hooker. 

Christ then told them that tenderest, sweetest 
of all His parables ; the story of the prodigal son. 
A certain man had two sons. The younger of 
them, fretting to be free, asked for his portion 
of his father's estate, and, gathering it all togeth- 
er, went out into a far country and spent it all in 
riotous living. A mighty famine came on there 
and he began to be in want. He joined himself 
to a citizen who sent him into his fields to feed 
swine. He would fain have filled his belly with 
the pods that the swine did eat ; but no man gave 



255 

even those unto him. In that degradation, sin 
and want, the spendthrift came to himself. He 
said, How many of the lowest servants, the day- 
laborers, of my father, have bread enough and to 
spare and I, his son, am perishing here with hun- 
ger. I will arise and go to my father and will 
say unto him, Father, I have sinned against 
heaven and before thee and am no more worthy 
to be called thy son, make me as one of thy day- 
laborers. He did not even ask for a home in the 
house, not to be a house servant, but a common 
day-laborer. And he arose, and came to his 
father. But when he was yet a great way off, 
his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, 
and fell on his neck, and kissed him. And the 
son said, Father, I have sinned against heaven 
and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be 
called thy son. But the father said to the ser- 
vants, Bring forth the best robe and put it on 
him ; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on 
his feet ; and bring forth the fatted calf and kill 
it, for there can be no other such occasion of 
joy ; and let us eat and be merry ; for this my 
son was dead, and is alive again ; he was lost 
and is found. And they began to be merry. And 
to the elder son complaining of this treatment 
of one who had devoured his estate with harlots, 
the father said, It was meet that we should 
make merry and be glad ; for this thy brother 
was dead, and is alive again ; and was lost, and 
is found. 



250 THE MODEL LIFE. 

O how much there was here for those publicans 
and sinners who stood around Him ! They were 
like the prodigal. They knew it, knew it well. He 
had drawn their picture. He had photographed 
themselves. They had left their father : had 
spent all: were in want. Ever}' rough face 
turned toward Him there was the face of a 
prodigal. The blood-tints that stained every eye 
told of sin. The leer that lurked under the brow 
of one, the defiance that shot from the contempt- 
uous expression of another, the stolid indifference 
that mantled the whole look and position of 
others, were the betrayers of interior depravity, 
revealers of personal guilt. 

And what words were these that they were 
hearing ! No accusation was hurled at them : 
no scorn met their aggravated guilt : no reproach 
was leveled at their long, bad lives. This Man 
above all other men; this divine Teacher of His 
race, looks at them with a face softened to deep- 
est pity, stretches out to them an open palm, 
speaks to them in words which thrill with love, 
calls them from their sad bad lives as a brother 
with a dying agony might call, as a father in full 
compassion and ready to forgive might call ! 

The three parables are a three-fold argument 
and appeal. First, we have the silly sheep 
exchanging the green pasture-grounds for the 
wild barren mountains, showing the folly of the 
sinner in forsaking the place of peace and safety. 
Then, we have the coin fallen and lost upon the 



CHRIST THE PEOPLE'S PREACHER. 257 

floor and concealed in the dust, its staaip 
unerased and its value undiminished, showing 
the self-degradation of the sinner, yet with the 
possibilities of his recovery. 

Thirdly, we have the younger son in his 
ungoverned willfulness, breaking away from 
home, squandering his inheritance, and degrad- 
ing himself to vile companionship and the care 
of repulsive beasts. First, there is lost one of a 
hundred, then one of ten, then one of two. 
First, a comparatively small proportion of all is 
lost, then a tithe of all, then a superlatively 
large amount, one of only two sons. First it is 
a brute, then a coin, and then a man. The sheep, 
the silver, the son, one in the wild mountains, 
one in the floor dust, one in the swine-pens, 
bring out vividly the wretchedness of the sinner. 
The Saviour's hearers knew the meaning of those 
parables, for they spoke of their own experience. 

Yet they were not left in despair: their posi- 
tion was not hopeless. Over against the wander- 
ing in the wilderness was the determined seeking 
of the shepherd : over against the concealment 
in the dust of the floor was the labor and look- 
ing of the woman : over against the self-will and 
vileness of the prodigal was the waiting, longing 
love of the father, not willing that he should per- 
ish but that he should come to repentance. Then 
in each case, is the after-joy : the joy of the neigh- 
bors with the shepherd, the joy of the female 
friends with the woman, the joy of the household 



258 



THE MODEL LIFE. 



with the happy father, figures of the joy that 
makes heaven glad when any lost sinner repents. 

The sheep is brought back: the coin is re- 
stored : the son is at home again, the best robe 
is brought forth, the seal-ring and the shoes are 
put upon him, and the stalled calf is killed and 
there is feasting and merriment in the old house 
again. The Saviour looked into every eye 
around Him, spoke to every heart of that group 
of publicans and sinners, woke memories and 
fears and hopes and repentings, let us believe, in 
many souls of them, so that those dead became 
alive again, and those lost were found. 

Christ, the Preacher to the people in Galilee, 
speaks the same truthful and tender words to 
every reader. Those beautiful and touching para- 
bles, with the color of heaven running through 
them, are His divine messages to every one of us. 
We are the lost sheep, we are the lost coin, we 
are the lost prodigal. And there is joy waiting 
for our recovery : joy, as it may be, of a mother, 
who has waited long in heaven, as the father of 
the prodigal waited, for the best tidings from 
the earth : joy, as it may be, of a child, plucked 
like a bud out of the earthly conservatory, made 
glad by the word that fills the heavens with su- 
premest joy. Many dear old friends of other 
days, of the happy youth-time, as it may be, the 
loved, the departed, the longed-for, wait and 
watch for the decision that shall waken among 
them the new, old joy. 



K 



XXI. 

CHRIST THE UNCHANGING FRIEND. 

ITH loving thoughtfulness the early dis- 
ciples dwelt upon the character of 
Christ. Forms of expression start upon 
us from their writings and addresses so full of 
sweet pathos and sterling trustfulness and tri- 
umphant joy, that we are arrested by them and 
from the general subject of the epistle or dis- 
course we turn to this new theme of which, 
whatever was his particular subject, the heart of 
the writer or speaker was fullest. As the prim- 
itive rocks of our globe rise through all subse- 
quent formations and crop out in almost every 
land, so through all other themes, penetrating 
and rising above them, does the greatest of all 
themes project itself, in the expressed thought 
of the early Christians. 

With them, Christ is the granite foundation 
and the enduring topmost stone. Especially are 
we struck with this in the nervous, forceful writ- 
ings of the chiefest of the Apostles. Mis great 
soul was full of Christ. Though he would not 
dare to say it of himself, trembling as he did lest, 
after having preached to others, he himself should 
be a castaway, yet his life assures us that Christ 

[259] 



^°U THE MODEL LIFE. 

was formed in him the hope of glory. Christ 
was with him the first and the last, the be- 
ginning- and the end, for whom are all things, 
and by whom are all things. And so, whatever 
was his theme, Christ was always the foremost 
character in it. 

As in some grand and matchless harmony, 
through all the lite-song that he lilted up to the 
praise of the Redeemer, Christ was ever the 
sweet and crowning and finished refrain. He 
determined to know nothing among the people 
to whom he wrote or spoke, save Jesus Christ 
and Him crucified. It was a title sufficiently 
honorable for him to sign himself the servant of 
Jesus Christ. Though a scholar among scholars, 
he gloried in that which the wisdom of the 
world considered the foolishness of the cross. 
As a free-born Roman citizen he longed most of 
all to visit the capital of that proud and all-con- 
quering empire that he might "preach the 
gospel to them that are at Rome also." In his 
masterly argument in the Epistle to the Romans, 
on the weakness of the law and the efficacy of 
the gospel as a reliance for lost men, it is with 
exulting and triumphant language that he con- 
cludes the eighth chapter, on the impossibility of 
the separation of Christians from their Lord. 

If in another epistle he mentions the name of 
Christ, he appends to it the phrase "who is 
blessed forevermore." In another place when 
he had occasion to say the faith of the Son of 



CHRIST THE UNCHANGING FRIEND. 261 

God, he adds, " who loved me and gave Himself 
forme." If he speaks of the love of Christ it is 
" the love of Christ which passeth knowledge." 
It is not enough to speak merely of the gospel, 
but it is " the glorious gospel of the blessed 
God." 

In the Epistle to the Hebrews there is a singu- 
lar sentence which stands in the midst of practi- 
cal exhortations, as an independent proposition. 
It rises like a monument to Christ in the path of 
common Christian duty. It is as though this 
one statement were enough to fortify any 
requirement of Christ. Do this: do that: be 
faithful here : be earnest there : be watchful 
everywhere: because, "Jesus Christ is the same, 
yesterday, and to-day, and forever." It is enough 
to strengthen any appeal to connect it with the 
name of Christ. His immutability is the proof 
of every argument: the complement of every 
creed, the crown of every work. All duties are 
corollaries from that sole proposition. It was 
enough for the dauntless warriors of France to 
know that the eye of the adored Emperor 
watched them as they moved fearlessly into the 
shock and strife of battle. It is altogether 
enough for the soldiers of Immanucl to be 
reminded that their great Captain is the same 
yesterday, and to-day, and forever: that the eye 
that has watched the progress of the great earth- 
struggle from the first, that has marked the spot 
where each faithful warrior has fallen, still 



■lu-2 



THE MODEL LIFE. 



watches the fortunes of the contest and will give 
each one still who falls the grace to shout with 
the last breath, Thanks be unto God who giveth 
us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ. 

This sentence reveals that loving trustfulness 
with which the Apostle and the early disciples 
clung to Christ. Some fact in regard to Him 
who loved them and died for them rises through 
the tide of rhetoric and the deductions of logic : 
stands as the corner-stone of every argument and 
every appeal. 

Here it is Christ's iincliangeableness. " Jesus 
Christ is the same yesterday, and to-day, and 
forever." This is a sublime and interesting 
statement and one well fitted to cheer on in the 
life of faith those to whom the Apostle was 
writing and all who inherit or receive the 
treasure of such a truth. 

The fact of Christ's unchangeableness an- 
ounces to us His divinity. Its foremost effect is 
to awaken our adoration. There is but one 
being of whom it can be said, He is the same 
yesterday, and to-day, and forever. Change 
characterizes the world's inhabitants. We speak 
of the everlasting hills. But they are only of 
recent origin. Mighty internal forces have 
remodeled the surface of the globe, crowding 
up the mountains and depressing the beds of the 
seas. The wear of the elements is constantly, 
slowly but constantly, leveling the hills and 
erelong they are to be burnt up. The present is 



CHRIST THE UNCHANGING FRIEND. 263 

one in a succession of changes which have 
altered the entire appearance and adaptation of 
the solid earth. Different orders of beings have 
heretofore peopled this planet from any that are 
now living upon it, and when the " new earth " 
shall be reconstructed after the final conflagra- 
tion it will undoubtedly be the habitation of 
very different beings from those who now dwell 
upon it. Change too passes over all the works 
of man. Empires pass away. Cities, once the 
seats of commerce and busy life, the capitals of 
power, turn into heaps of ruins. Thrones 
crumble. Armies, nations, races, fade away like 
dissolving mists. 



" Like the baseless fabric of a vision, 
The cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces, 
The solemn temples, the great globe itself, 
Yea, all which it inherits, shall dissolve; 
And, like an unsubstantial pageant faded, 
Leave not a rack behind." 

But. above the world, Creator and Lord of it, 
is One who changes not. 



" Of old lie laid the foundation of the earth : 

And the heavens are the work of His hands. 

They shall perish, but He shall endure : 

Yea, all of them shall wax old like ;i garment : 

As a vesture shall He change them and they shall be 

changed : 
But He is the same, and His years shall have no end." 



264 THE MODEL LIFE. 

"With Him is no variableness, neither shadow 
of turning." "Jesus Christ is the same yester- 
day, and to-day, and forever." This attribute of 
divinity is His. We may feel therefore that we 
come to one who is no less than God Himself. 
Gratefully and humbly we should adore Him. 
Whenever we address Him, as He presents Him- 
self to us, in His various offices of grace, whether 
as our Prophet, our Priest, or our King, we 
should say with Thomas, " My Lord and my 
God." From our hearts, in harmony with the 
praise which rises before the throne from the 
angels and the elders and the heavenly hosts, 
whose number is ten thousand times ten thous- 
and and thousands of thousands, should ascend 
the ascription, " Worthy is the Lamb that was 
slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, 
and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing." 
At all times, when we feel the need of superior 
strength and better wisdom and pardon of our 
sins and justification with God, we can call to 
mind the fact that our Redeemer and Advocate 
is the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever. 

Christ's unchangeableness promotes perfect 
confidence in Him. We have in our hands the 
record of His love for man, of His love for, and 
His gracious dealings with, His people, of His 
promises to His enemies and to His friends. We 
know what He has been to us and what he has 
done for us. When the world lay, prospectively, 
in the guilt of sin, when its populations were all 



CHRIST THE UNCHANGING FKIKND. 265 

seen to be estranged from God and exposed to 
His just and deserved curse, Christ came for- 
ward as their Redeemer. He proposed, volun- 
tarily, to die for them, at such time as should be 
best ; in the meantime, to have His purposed 
death so announced to them, that they could 
look forward to it as a sure thing and rely upon 
it. When the ages of darkness and human 
guilt, preparatory to His advent, had rolled 
gloomily into the past eternity ; in the fullness 
of time, when the scattered races of men had 
universally corrupted their way and their hearts, 
so that the need, the necessity of Redemption 
was everywhere felt ; when the earth bore upon 
its torn and scarred surface the signs of the 
curse, and death had ridged all its plains with 
graves so that His presence would be hailed who 
is the resurrection and the life ; when the pop- 
ulation of the globe had become immense ; when 
human power, in the rise and fall of successive 
empires, had declared its weakness; when human 
wisdom in the seats of its finished learning and 
through the instructions of its sages had mani- 
fested its utter insufficiency to grapple with the 
greatest truths and to satisfy the wants of the 
mind; when even the Hebrew system, with all 
its ceremonial magnificence and impressiveness, 
with its pure morality and its types and shadows 
the promise of better things to come, had deteri- 
orated from ils ancient purity into empty tradi- 
tions and formal routine : and when the way was 



■2to 



THE MODEL LIFE. 



prepared by divine providence for the spread of 
the gospel, Christ, long-promised and long- 
awaited, came ; came, to achieve the redemption 
of the world. He lived among us in such a won- 
derful manner as to demonstrate His claim to be 
the Son of God, speaking as never man spake, 
walking in a pathway such as no other one hath 
ever used, enduring what mere humanity has 
never endured from devils, men, and even from 
His Father. 

At last, after a pretended trial, after cruel mock- 
ings, after basest ingratitude, sinking under His 
cross, pierced with a chaplet of thorns, bearing 
the world's sins, wounded for our transgressions, 
as a lamb to the slaughter He went to Calvary 
to die, the just for the unjust, the Saviour of sin- 
ners. Such as He was throughout that life, in 
that fearful dying, such is He always. "Jesus 
Christ is the same yesterday, and to-day. and for- 
ever." He loves sinners still, with the love that 
He had when He left heaven for them, when He 
cried, as a heart-broken parent for lost children, 
to all the weary and heavy-laden, " Come unto 
me, and I will give you rest." We cannot reflect 
on what He has done from the over-flo wings of 
His affection for us without feeling a most per- 
fect confidence in Him promoted by our thought. 
Christ's dear love and gracious dealings with 
His people also promote confidence. It is for 
them He preserves the world which He created: 
Were it not for His people He would permit the 



CHRIST THE UNCHANGING FRIEND. 267 

fire to burst forth and consume the globe. The 
true history of the world is the History of Re- 
demption. The great mind of Edwards seized 
upon this central idea, and in his profound work 
on this subject we can see developed the true 
theory of human history. Thrones, principal- 
ities, powers, armies and navies, the contests of 
nations and races, arts, sciences, inventions, im- 
provements, trade, commerce, learning, enter- 
prise, discoveries, these are but the digressions 
of history : its main volume is the work of Christ. 
The thread of the world's story is the love of the 
Redeemer for His people. Before He came, 
His thoughts were given to them. Throughout 
the commotions and changes of all time, He has 
rescued them, at one time calling them to go into 
a land that they knew not of, at another urging 
them forth from doomed cities, again bearing 
them safely in the ark over the sunken world, 
bringing them forth with a mighty hand from the 
house of bondage, causing their enemies to flee 
before them, raising up defenses for them among 
the powerful, conferring upon them gifts of 
position, power, influence, control, until, once 
despised, they are now the foremost in all 
the qualities of greatness. And He who has 
thus guarded and blessed His people, is the same, 
yesterday, and to-day, and forever. " If He be 
for us, who can be against us ?" Who can fail 
to have assured confidence in Him ? 

He stops not with what He has done. His 



268 THE MODEL LIFE. 

promises to them, which shall in no wise fail, 
insure still larger and ever increasing blessings 
throughout all time. His people are to have 
dominion, and through them Christ is to reign 
supreme over all the earth. Shall we, can we 
doubt, distrust, such a Head over all things to 
His Church? 

Besides, we have been, personally, the sharers 
in such blessings from Him, that we ought to 
cherish the firmest trust in Him. He who has 
loved us, who has died for us, who has pardoned 
some of us, and accepted us as co-heirs with 
Himself, is forever the same, and forever will 
delight to exalt and bless us. What He has done 
for us is only the proof of what He is willing to 
do. What He has been to us, through changes, 
trials, fears, joys, that are past, He is willing still 
to be. 

Memory, therefore, may bind us, by its spell, to 
the cross. Thoughts of other days may be as 
golden links to hold us true to Christ, who is the 
same yesterday, and to-day, and forever. 

Christ's unchangeableness pledges to us, the 
divine sympathy. If there is any fact that stands 
boldly, prominently, out in the recorded life of 
Jesus, it is His intense sympathy for burdened 
and distressed humanity. Moved by that, He 
came among them, on His redemptive work. 
The sight of earth's woes, the hearing of its 
groans, the agony of its struggling, perplexed, 
dissatisfied generations, touched His infinite 



CHRIST THE UNCHANGING FRIEND. 269 

heart, and drew forth expressions and acts of 
tenderest benevolent sympathy. And while He 
was with men, He was moved by their sorrows 
and distresses. He saw them wandering- and 
scattered and defenseless, as sheep that have no 
shepherd, and He longed to take them in His 
arms and carry them in His bosom, and lead them 
beside still waters, and protect them within His 
fold. The poor, the orphaned, the distressed, 
those who bore heavy burdens, and whom the 
great and powerful and rich scorned, were those 
to whom He preached the gospel, and whom He 
most tenderly welcomed to Himself. Through 
the thick darkness in which they groped on sin's 
mountains He caused the pure light of His love 
to beam upon them, in which they could walk 
safely, fearing no evil. Over the floods upon 
which they were tossed fearfully, He caused 
His voice to be heard by them saying, " I am the 
way, and the truth, and the life : he that cometh 
to me shall never perish." We might take up 
particular instances of His manifested sympathy, 
and learn from them what He will be to us who 
is the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever. 

As He looked from Olivet upon the city that 
slumbered beneath Him, He broke forth into 
lamentation over it as a Father might bewail the 
ruin of his children, until His utterance was 
broken by I lis grief, so that the sentence is 
preserved for us interrupted by his tears. " If 



270 THE MODEL LIFE. 

thou hadst known, at least in this thy day, the 
things that belong unto thy peace, — but now 
are they hid from thine eyes." 

When grieved by the continued rejection 
which He received from those among whom 
most of His mighty works were done, so that 
He could not forbear a declaration of the woe 
which they were bringing rapidly upon them- 
selves, as if oppressed by the fearful thought 
and willing still to do what He could to save 
them, His heart gushes over in one more appeal to 
them, "Come unto me, and I will give you rest." 
With all that wealth of love which was paralleled 
only by the wealth of His exhaustless supplies, 
He utters to all the needy this unlimited 
promise, 4 ' He that cometh to me shall never 
hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never 
thirst." And what were all those marvelous 
miracles which distinguished and graced His life 
but the manifestations of His blessed sympathy 
for the poor, the suffering, the sorrowing? In 
the clear waters of the Pool of Bethesda, where 
the infirm man was healed, you may see 
mirrored the heart of Christ toward you, what- 
ever may be your bodily or mental maladies. 
He whose life is summed up in that expressive 
and comprehensive phrase, " He went about 
doing good :" who restored the withered hand 
of one ; who gave the blind men sight, and 
caused the deaf to hear His words, and made 
the lame leap for joy; who called back to life 



CHRIST THE UNCHANGING FRIICND. 271 

the onl)- son of his mother, and she a widow ; 
who brought joy to the saddened house of the 
ruler of the synagogue by raising from death 
his youthful and lamented daughter ; who loved 
Martha and Mary and their brother Lazarus so 
well that He restored him to them after he had 
been dead four days ; He will feel for you what- 
ever may be your sorrows and distresses. 

You cannot lack the tender sympathy of 
Christ : for He is the same, yesterday, and to-day, 
and forever. And every scene and act of His 
blessed life which brings out to view His love 
for others, His tenderness for the burdened and 
bereaved, is a pledge of the same sympathy on 
His part for you. In all your afflictions He is 
afflicted. When you watch by the sick, Jesus 
watches with you. When alone you suffer and 
feel that no one cares for you, you are not alone, 
for He is with you who will never leave nor 
forsake His people. When you mourn over the 
waywardness of those for whom your prayers 
have been mingled with your tears, you may be 
sine of 1 1 is sympathy who came unto His own 
and His own received Him not. When you 
stand solitary and smitten by the grave where 
you have buried the best part of your life, you 
shall hear his sympathetic voice whispering to 
you, "Thy friend shall rise again." And when 
your fluttering and disturbed heart fails to 
appropriate all the truth of the assurance, you 
shall hear Him again saying, " I am the resurrec- 



2 7 '1 THE MODEL LIFE. 

tion, and the life : he that believeth in me, though 
he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever 
liveth, and believeth in me shall never die." 

Into that heart that will entertain Christ and 
will believe His words shall come solace and 
strength sufficient to bear all trials, to press for- 
ward along every burning track, though it be 
even in the footsteps of Him who trod the 
wine-press alone. 

Christ's unchangeableness assures us of a cer- 
tain way of salvation. As a Saviour also He " is 
the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever." 
The same love that led Him down from heaven 
to this world, that led Him forth among men on 
His divine ministrations, that led Him to endure 
the agonies and pains of His fearful death for 
sinners, still fills His heart. He looks now from 
the heights of heaven with the same compassion 
upon all who are estranged from God that He 
had when from Olivet He looked upon Jerusalem 
and wept over it. The same melting words of 
entreaty and sorrowful sympathy which He 
addressed to sinners in tones which broke their 
hearts, He would still address to us. The same 
plain and simple terms of salvation on which He 
ever invited the lost to Himself are the terms 
which He offers to us. And these terms 
He offers to every one of us. As His redemption 
was not a Particular Redemption, but a Redemp- 
tion for all men, a Redemption so broad as 
to include every sinner in it and not a particular, 



Christ the unchanging friend. 273 

limited number of favored sinners, so none are 
now excluded from His mercy, unless by their 
own voluntary rejection of Him. If any one 
among- us is lost, it is because he will not come 
unto Christ that he may have life. His arms are 
thrown broadly open to welcome and clasp us 
all. He is not willing that any should perish but 
that all should come to repentance : and if any 
do perish it is by grieving first the heart of 
Christ and then by hardening their own hearts. 

His sweet love and pity are ever and ever the 
same. 

He looks upon those who are children, with the 
same tenderness with which he looked upon the 
children of Perea, when He laid His hands upon 
them and blessed them and said, " Suffer little 
children to come unto me and forbid them not : 
for of such is the kingdom of God." That sweet 
Saviour longs to be their Saviour. He has 
never taken back those precious words, " I love 
them that love me and those that seek me early 
shall find me." 

The same full pardon which He freely be- 
stowed upon the sinner who brought an alabaster 
box of precious ointment, as He sat at meat in a 
Pharisee's house, and began to wash His feet 
with tears and to wipe them with her flowing 
hair and to anoint them with the ointment, when 
He said, " Her sins which arc many are forgiven 
her," would He gladly bestow upon any and 



274 THE MODEL LIFE. 

ever}- one of us, no matter how many and great 
our sins have been. 

That divine grace which He manifested when 
in tones of pity and love He said unto a broken- 
hearted sinner, " Go, and sin no more," He would 
delight to manifest to us. The Saviour of the 
Magdalene, out of whom He cast seven devils, 
would be the Saviour of the most guilty one. 
He who told the story of the Prodigal Son to 
illustrate his own feelings for the wayward, 
would to-day welcome to His heart anyone 
who has wandered away in the sins and misery 
of the world like that guilty prodigal. The 
same love that He had for the rich young man, 
who went away from Him sorrowfully, because 
he could not quite give up the world for Christ, 
He has for those now who only lack the one 
thing needful. The sad, melting words, wrung 
from His heart, over the rejection of those for 
whom He came, " How often would I have gath- 
ered thy children together — but ye would not," 
reveal His feelings toward those who now reject 
Him. Nay, that still more pitiful prayer, which, 
even in His dying moments He offered for His 
murderers," Father, forgive them, for they know 
not what they do," showed what Christ's feel- 
ings are for those who have crucified Him afresh 
by rejecting Him as a Saviour. He whose life is 
given to us in the gospels, whose heart is bared 
to us in these instances of His pity and compas- 



CHKIST THE UNCHANGING FRIEND. 275 

sion and forgiveness, " is the same yesterday, and 
to-day, and forever." 

The personal appeal comes to us, Will we 
accept Him as our own Saviour, and find, as 
those found who came to Him when He was on 
earth, how <rreat and rich and full His love is? 



XXII. 

CHRIST'S CLAIM ON MEN OF INFLUENCE. 



N all our so-called Christian communities 
there is a body of men, varying in 
number, in different places, but unvary- 
ing in their position, who accept Christianity 
intellectually, but who stand aloof from Christ 
personally and practically. These men would 
consider themselves discredited if opposition to 
Christ or indifference to His Kingdom were 
imputed to them. They would not be considered 
so unintelligent as to be thought uncognizant of 
the perpetual miracle of the history of Christian- 
ity in the world, which as Mr. Lecky character- 
izes it, was such " that its teachers should bend 
the mightiest monarchs to their will, and stamp 
their influence on every page of legislation, and 
direct the whole course of civilization for a 
thousand years." Sometimes they think of 
themselves as neutrals : not regarding the 
maxim of the Master, " He who is not with me is 
against me." Perhaps they claim that they are 
Christians, though without any standard of 
Christianity that would sanction the claim. 
Generally, and more fairly, they honesl I y con- 

[V7\ 



278 THE MODEL LIFE. 

cede that they have not accepted Christ as a per- 
sonal Redeemer and Lord : i. e. have not gone to 
Him for salvation from their sins, and have not 
yielded their lives to Him in unconditional 
obedience to all His commands. Still they hold 
the Bible to be the Word of God, Christ to be 
the Saviour of sinners, religion to be the duty 
of man, faith to be the door into the Kingdom, 
the Holy Spirit to be the renewer of the soul, 
death to be the end of probation, eternity to 
be the realm of destiny. Indeed, accepting the 
Scripture, they accept its doctrines, and recog- 
nize its prescribed duties. 

They are men of greater or less influence : to 
whom a certain number look as models or 
examples for themselves: at least as those to 
whom less decided and less intelligent men can 
point in the way of excuse for their own inatten- 
tion or indifference to Christ. I propose to 
consider here The claim of Christ on men of influ- 
ence. 

The claim of Christ is the claim of one who is 
worthy of the deference of such men. There is 
not one of them who would deny that proposi- 
tion. Whatever may be their opinion of Chris- 
tians, they have a sincere respect for Christ. 
Whatever criticisms they may level at the way 
in which the Lord is represented by those who 
assume to follow Him, they have no animad- 
versions to make cither in respect to His person 
or His character or His mediatorial work. In 



Christ's claim on men of influence. 279 

their thought they exalt Christ to the first place. 
He is Lord of all. He is perfect in His attri- 
butes and in all that makes Him what He is. 
His redemptive office is one that demands the 
homage and gratitude of all men. 

There is no need, therefore, of argument to con- 
vince them that the Saviour is worthy of their 
deference. When then He comes to them with 
the claim for their lives, for their love and loyalty, 
for their obedience and service, they should read- 
ily, gladly, gratefully, yield to the claim, and say 
like Thomas,"My Lord, and my God!" They have 
nothing to object to the worthiness of Him who 
makes the supreme demand upon them. They 
respect the reverence which He has received 
from uncounted numbers of believers, the devo- 
tion which has made men and women and chil- 
dren willing, most glad, to sacrifice anything 
and everything most dear for Him, the love 
which has proved itself to be the most intense of 
human passions as it has burned and glowed and 
endured for Him. His claim upon them, there 
fore, should have quick and thorough acquies- 
cence. They should ask, " Lord, what, wilt Thou 
have me to do?" He is worthy who asks for 
their lives. 

The claim of Christ oil men of influence should 
be accepted because Christianity is for strong 
men. " Solid food is for full-grown men, even 
those who by reason of use have their senses ex- 
ercised to discern good and evil," The truth of 



280 



THE MODEL LIFE. 



Christianity is the weightiest truth that challenges 

human thought and attention. It is all solid 
food, and is, therefore, for full-grown men, for 
those who by reason of experience have had their 
senses exercised to discern good and evil, to dis- 
tinguish the true and the false. It is indeed sim- 
ple in its essentials, so simple that a child can 
grasp it : but its very simplicity commends it also 
to mature minds. It is clear truth. The great 
maxims of law are clear and simple. The facts 
of science are plain to the understanding. The 
regulations of life are such that common 
men can comprehend them. But all these are 
more or less profound. Indeed.the greatest truths 
are both simple and profound. The sea has shal- 
lows in which a child can wade : it has depths 
beyond the sounding of the strongest man. 

The greatest question that a human soul can 
ask is the question, What shall I do to be saved? 
The answer to that question is within the reach 
of humble intellect: it has meaning in it deep 
enough for the profoundest philosophy. No 
man loses his self-respect who makes that ques- 
tion foremost. No man misuses his time or his 
abilities or his opportunities who lays every- 
thing else aside till that question is settled. It 
is a question whose relative importance is meas- 
ured by the worth of the immortal soul. It is a 
question whose rank may be determined by the 
bliss of heaven or the woe of hell. It is a ques- 
tion that starts from the cross of a suffering R Q , 



Christ's claim on men of influence. 281 

deemer: that nnds its importance in the trans- 
cendent sacrifice of the Son of God. The bright- 
est intellects that God has created, the mature 
and disciplined spirits whose studies have swept 
through peopled space, who are old and learned 
in the ways of God, recognize no subject more 
vast than this, more worthy to look into. Men 
of influence can find nothing which commands 
their attention more thoroughly. The claim of 
Christ, through the work of His redemption, is 
the first claim upon the strongest minds. 

The whole range and sweep of revealed Chris- 
tianity, in all its doctrines and demands, chal- 
lenges the notice, nay, the unqualified loyalty, of 
the sturdiest minds. Longinus, who was called 
a " walking library,'' the acutest critic and 
scholar of his day, a pagan, as we say, called the 
first sentence of the Bible one of the most sub- 
lime in any writings. Measure, if you can, (he 
thought of God, in the beginning, creating. Sir 
William Jones wrote, " Independently of the 
divine origin of the Scriptures, 1 have found in 
them more true wisdom, more practical good 
sense, and wanner benevolence, a higher strain 
of thought and poetry, than I have found * * in 
all other works put together." lie was the 
broadest scholar of his time. Christianity cannot 
be exhausted by you. The deeper you go, the 
richer will be its veins and deposits of truth. 

Strong men have found the claim ol Chris! to 
be imperative and exhaustive. They have IouikI 



282 THE MODEL LIFE. 

that there was solid food in it for full grown 
men, that however thoroughly their senses had 
been exercised to discern truth, there was in it 
that which was important and deep enough both 
to employ and to satisfy them. It has won on 
its merits. It has stood all tests. Nothing else 
has encountered such enmity as has the cross of 
Christ. Every sword has been unsheathed 
against it. Ingenuity has spent itself to destroy 
it. But it has held its place : and it has had 
the support and the loyalty of the best minds. 
The roll of faith is a roll of eminent names. 
Standing among the common men who have 
embraced Christ, are the scholars of many ages, 
are the leaders of human opinion, are the men of 
most eminent manhood, are those who have 
wrought most efficiently for the good of their 
fellow-men. 

The books of widest teaching are the works of 
Christian writers. The science of best authen- 
ticity rests on the research of Christian explorers. 
Men of thought, men of action as well, men of 
the study and men of the cabinet and the camp, 
have stood for Christ, have acknowledged that 
they owed all to Him. Their best life has been 
their life in Christ. Their common confession is, 
Christ liveth in me. Gladstone, bearing the 
burdens of an empire, is kept in serenity, because 
he daily communes with his Lord, who is the 
Lord of all men. He has lately written : " All 
1 write, and all I think, and all I hope, is based 



Christ's claim on men of influence. 283 

upon the divinity of our Lord, the one central 
hope of our poor wayward race." 

Bismarck, when he presided in the imperial 
cabinet, daily led his household and his servants 
in family prayer for divine strength and light, 
looking to Jesus the beginner and the finisher of 
faith. In palaces, in universities, in senates, in 
workshops and in ships, wherever there is leader- 
ship, there is also faith in Christ. The strongest 
men are on His side. You join those who weigh 
the most, intellectually and morally, when you 
become a Christian. 

Men of influence owe it to themselves not to be 
on the side of Satan. His service is a degrad- 
ing service : it is as mean as wicked. There are 
two sides, Christ's and Satan's. Those who are 
not with Christ are with His enemy. He takes 
no cognizance of neutrality. Neutrality is ruled 
out. It simply, is not. The enrollment of men is 
under one standard or the other — the white ban- 
ner of Christ, the black flag of Satan. Man 
must be a free man or a menial : and freedom is 
only in Christ. 

Not to be with Him, for Him, is to be against 
Him. Such is His own decision. Men, there- 
fore, who hold places of influence, who decide 
for other men, who carry a following, who are 
thought to be good enough to go by, should be 
sensitive as to their own Leader, should be care- 
ful not to be for themselves on a side which 
their intelligence and their conscience pro- 



284 THE MODEL LIFE. 

nounce hurtful and destroying. Every man of 
influence should be self-respecting. He should 
hold himself aloof from the leader of bad influ- 
ence, from the instigator of all evil, from that 
infernal power by which woe with sin has 
desolated the fair earth and robbed its people of 
their peace. It is a simple duty which every 
such man owes to himself, if there were nothing 
else to be thought of, to be opposed to Satan. 

On the principle of simple consistency men of 
influence should yield to the claim of Christ. 
Some of them are fathers, and they claim respect 
and obedience from their children. Some of 
them are employers, and they claim diligence 
and fidelity on the part of their employees. 
Some of them are magistrates, and they claim 
loyalty and respect for law on the part of citizens. 
In whatever position they are, they expect 
gratitude for favors, they expect kindness in 
return for kindness, they hold that love should 
be esteemed, that dependence should be ac- 
knowledged, that correct principles should 
regulate business and hold society together. It 
is as plain as an axiom with them that one man 
should appreciate what another has clone for 
him. 

Consistency, simplest consistency, with then- 
own demands, with their own sense of what is 
right, with the practical principles which they 
avow and insist upon, requires that they should 
yield to Christ's claim. He is your Creator, 



Christ's claim on men of influence. 285 

your Redeemer. You owe everything to Him : 
everything of the world that is worth having, 
everything spiritual, holy, heavenly. His law is 
supreme over you. His love is unbounded 
for you. His work, His sacrifice, His agony 
for you, are beyond words to express. His 
kingdom is the one government to which 
you owe your highest loyalty. Over everything 
of personality, of family, of society, of national- 
ity, of common brotherhood, rises the august 
and comprehensive and loving claim of Christ. 
You cannot reject it, without rejecting your 
own most cherished principles. You cannot 
ignore it, without casting contempt on all your 
better judgment in all other affairs. 

You believe and profess that men who have 
influence in society, in politics, in business, in 
education, in the progress of mankind, should 
use that influence for all that is best in all those 
spheres of action. How can you be consistent 
with yourself if you do not yield to the claim of 
Christ for your best service and influence, for 
your open and avowed loyalty to Him ? Is it 
for you, and such as you, to take the course 
which would abolish the sacraments, which 
would do away necessarily with the organized 
church, which would leave Christ without any 
open following, which would antagonize His 
ordinances and His commands? You cannot 
really maintain it. You must see that on your 
own principles you should return love for 



286 The model life. 

Christ's love, you should carefully, rigidly, 
loyally, fulfill all that Christ requires of those 
whom he has redeemed. 

Men of influence should yield to Christ's claim 
because they have influence. Influence is a 
sacred trust. It is a providential power. God 
has permitted you to have it for a holy purpose. 
You might have been where other men are, who 
are low-down and craven and mean and who lack 
spirit. The splendid ascendency which you 
have is the very royalty of manhood. This fine 
authority which comes from your station, from 
your intellectual supremacy, from your consist- 
ent character, from your excellent living, is the 
regalest crown that can be worn by man. The 
power that you easily wield over other men, 
because you are their natural or ordained 
superior, is higher than any that is represented 
by scepter, or that is conferred by suffrage. 

No throne stands on such eternal principles. 
No aristocracy has such undisputed title. No 
lineage, traced by blood and sanctioned by deeds, 
gives such undoubted right. You stand where 
you stand, because you deserve, in the judgment 
of your peers, to stand there. 

You cannot misapply or misuse your influence 
without disloyalty to Him who has the highest 
claim upon you. To refuse to yield it all to 
Christ is treason to your best friend, to your 
own divine redeemer. 

God claims it for Himself. Christ, by the 



CHRIST S CLAIM ON MKN OF INFLUENCE. 287 

misery, and by the merit, of His passion, claims 
it all, to be employed and consecrated in His ser- 
vice. Christ wants the best. He summons the 
noblest. He does not call for only the forlorn 
hope. 

One of the great pictures of Defregger, the 
finest artist of our day, in the Pinakothek at 
Munich, is entitled, The Last Muster. The 
armies of the Tyrol have gone down in disas- 
trous battle. The young men who were enrolled, 
the flower of those mountain valleys, have fallen 
in defense of their homes. The veterans, 
schooled in the hard discipline of war, have 
yielded to superior force. The call comes back 
from bloody fields and crowded hospitals for 
fresh recruits. Then comes the last muster of 
old men, who have long ago seen service, who 
have retired with the wounds and scars of an- 
cient battles, who are unfitted by age and feeble- 
ness for further hardship, yet in whose aged 
bosoms the patriotic fires burn and who are 
ready to give their last energies to home and 
children and country. 

Christ calls for the choicest muster. He calls 
for the men of chiefest influence, whose power 
is acknowledged : for those who stand in soci- 
ety in the very foremost rank. The divine 
Leader calls for the leaders of men. Because 
you have influence, because where you go others 
will follow, because you should lead upward and 
not downward, Christ's claims come to you 



288 THE MODEL LIFE. 

with authoritative obligation. He musters you 
with the mandate of kingship, into His service 
Were you less than you are, you should be 
Christian. Because you are all that you are 
the Redeemer's claim is stronger upon you 
The ascendency of your personality intensifies 
the Lord's demand for your devoted service 
The dominion that you hold through the spirit 
ual suffrage of your fellows, co-ordinates your 
life with the kingdom of Christ on earth. 



THE END. 



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